War of the Sea Monsters
by Neil Riebe
Summary: War of the Sea Monsters is a sequel to Godzilla vs The Sea Monster. Ebirah gets his revenge against Godzilla, but a new monster is terrorizing the sea. Ebirah needs Godzilla's help. Can they form an alliance now that they hate each other more than ever?
1. Chapter 1

**War of the Sea Monsters**

 **By Neil Riebe**

 **Part 1**

 **Chapter 1**

Ebirah, the kaiju lobster, crept across the ocean floor toward the precipice of an abyss. So deep was he below the sun-kissed surface of the Pacific, the water was black as night. Bioluminescent sea life puttered about him like fireflies. He traveled blind, relying on his sense of smell to navigate through the murky depths. His sensitive antennules twitched when he reached the edge. The rotten-eggs odor of hydrogen sulfide and the tang of dissolved metals made his antennule hairs tingle. He also sensed the cold rising from the abyss, a lonely, hungry sort of cold.

This was it, the Marianas Trench. Its deepest point, the Challenger Deep, could swallow Mount Everest whole. However, that was the deepest point known to Man. Ebirah had journeyed to an even deeper region, which was known to the creatures of the sea as Gaia's Womb. Down there, in the Womb, was the fabled Fountain of Life. The fishes, whales, and fellow crustaceans whispered of the Fountain's restorative powers. All one had to do was brave the crushing pressure and blood curdling cold.

Ebirah's heart fluttered.

Then he raised the stumps of his arms toward his face and smelt his blood seeping from the open wounds. The salt in the water burned the exposed, pink meat. Godzilla's image flashed in his mind. Godzilla and he had fought against each other off the coast of Letchi Island. Godzilla yanked off his claws and snapped them at him as he fled from the field of battle. The snapping still rang in Ebirah's head. Godzilla didn't just trounce the giant lobster, he humiliated him. A lobster without his claws was like a boxer without his fists.

Ebirah's desire for revenge helped him recover his courage. He dove into Gaia's Womb.

Down…down…down...he plunged, seemingly for eternity as the pressure tightened its grip. The aroma of decaying animal and vegetable matter intensified as he neared bottom until at last he touched down like a lunar lander upon a seabed of basaltic sediment and biogenous ooze. His gills sighed in relief. The pressure was not beyond his endurance, although his exoskeleton creaked and buckled.

Now began his journey in earnest.

He trekked forward, tantalized by the odors rising from the detritus mixed in the sand. This goop would be disgusting to humans, but it contained the meat and potatoes of Ebirah's diet. He would grab a snack if he had not lost his claws.

An angelic light glowed in the distance.

That must be it! Ebirah quickened his pace.

The Fountain of Life was a fifteen-story tall thermal vent. Clams, as big as houses, basked in its radiance. Tube worms swayed from its mineral-enriched chimney as if in worship of the fountain's restorative properties. The glow shined from the chimney's peek. At best, the glow could be described as a spiritual light emanating compassion, hope, and safety.

Ebirah supplicated before the Fountain of Life as though it were a god and then thrust his stumps into the restorative light. The billowing white smoke roared from the chimney as pins and needles sensations coursed down his arms and throughout his body. New claws formed and stretched to full adult length.

The giant lobster withdrew from the light. His new claws glowed as forged iron and assumed a normal, pinkish-red hue as they cooled.

Ebirah tested his claws on a hapless clam, grasping it, wrenching open the shell and devoured the creature within. The clam meat tasted sweat. Ebirah felt whole again.

He supplicated before the Fountain of Life once more and departed from Gaia's Womb for the ocean surface, seeking Godzilla. Seeking revenge.

#

The Netherlands was the most densely populated nation in Europe, but compared to Japan, Shindo thought the country was rather roomy. At least he could catch a cool breeze in the streets of Amsterdam. Back home, in Tokyo, the streets were hemmed in by skyscrapers, broiler-plate hot, beeping with car horns and choked with exhaust. Shindo found summer in the Dutch capital to be more civil.

With his mallet resting on his shoulder, he sauntered to the center of the polo field astride his "pony," the nickname the sport gave horses. His team consisted of an older colleague in the Japanese secret service, Ryu Tuturi, who served as team captain, Genshi, a socialite from Yokohama, and a rough-and-tumble Canadian named Sam Hyde.

Elisabeth Van Valkenburg captained the opposing team. A tall, lovely brunette, Shindo wondered if Elisabeth Van Valkenburg was the woman's real name or an alias she had given to the polo association so she could play. Shindo knew her as Satin, woman soldier of fortune and gun for hire.

The two teams faced each other from either side of the center line. Shindo and Satin's eyes met, lingered. They broke out in smiles from mutual attraction. Fate forced them to cross swords many times in the cloak and dagger field. It was a pleasant change of pace to spar with mallets instead of guns.

Celeste, Satin's defensive player, glowered at Shindo. He wasn't sure which she despised more, the fact they were on opposite sides of the law or his interest in her boss. Celeste was also a gun for hire.

Faora, Satin's other henchwoman, cheered from the stands. She didn't play sports.

The announcer warmed up the crowd as the umpire entered the field with the ball. The horses fidgeted, eager to burst into action. Shindo could tell Celeste was itching to tear into him.

"This is a game," Shindo teased her, "not a brawl."

"Scared?" Celeste taunted.

Satin cocked her brow at them as though they were behaving like children.

A horn sounded and the umpire cast the ball between the teams with an under-hand roll. The announcer cried, "And the match for the Amsterdam gold cup begins!"

Horse hooves thundered as the playing field became a jumble of red and blue jerseys. Shindo's team wore the blue and Satin's the red. Alfons, a Dutch local who played on the red team, tapped the ball to Satin. The wind whipped in Shindo's face as he caught up with her. He attempted to "ride" Satin off from the path of the ball while Sam closed in to check her horse with his. As the two men closed in on her, Satin wind-milled her mallet and popped the ball straight back toward her own goal. Shindo twisted in his saddle. The woman must have had eyes in the back of her head. The ball went straight to Celeste who swung, smooth and swift. Her mallet cracked the ball, sending it skidding back toward the blue team's goal. Both Sam and Shindo were too engaged in blocking Satin to check the ball's trajectory. It rolled right through their goal posts.

"First point to Red," the announcer called over the speakers.

Faora jumped from her seat, clapping and shouting, "Yeah!"

The spectators applauded.

Shindo flirtatiously hooked Satin's mallet with his as they returned to the center of the field for the throw-in.

Satin yanked her mallet free. "I'm going to be furious if we win because you don't have your head in the game."

"You want me to make you sweat? I can do that." Shindo grinned.

Shindo dutifully made her sweat, frustrating her offense at every turn. Her chocolate brown hair darkened to a greasy black and her face became damp with perspiration. Shindo wiped his face on his sleeve before riding by her, acting as though he wasn't a bit winded.

At the next toss-in, Alfons outmaneuvered Genshi and once again popped the ball to the red team's lead scorer, Satin. Shindo in one sweep tapped her mallet out of the way and hit the ball straight back toward her goal. Their horses jostled as they turned around. The ball bee-lined down the field, toward the goal posts. No other players were in sight until Celeste rode in. She struck the ball more like a World Series slugger than a skilled polo player, sending the ball hurtling right toward Shindo's head. Shindo ducked, evading the round bullet by inches. He felt it rip the air as it passed him.

He glanced toward the umpire to see if he would call a penalty.

The umpire didn't seem cognizant of Celeste's stunt.

Shindo gave her a dirty look.

She smirked and sauntered passed him. "Aw, am I making you sweat?"

He rode close enough to Satin to speak softly. "Would you tell her to watch it?"

"She's doing fine." Satin smiled brightly. "We're winning, aren't we?"

At half time, Tuturi dropped his hand on Shindo's shoulder. "We need you to spend less time chasing girls and more time scoring points. We're down by three goals."

The natives in both camps were getting restless. First Celeste, now his captain.

"All right," Shindo nodded sharply to his superior, "I'll work on it."

They mounted fresh horses. Once the ball was in play, Shindo threw his concentration into the game, body and soul, scoring two more points. In the final round the game was tied. Shindo was determined to keep the game from going into extra rounds. He tapped the ball down the field and spurred his mount to keep pace, using his close proximity to the ball to crowd out the opposing players.

Celeste bolted toward him. She gave no indication of maneuvering her horse around his. Either he moved or they would collide.

Faora clapped her hands yelling, "Go, Celeste! Go!"

Shindo called Celeste's bluff. Their horses side-swiped each other. Shindo was already braced for the moment. He kept a tight reign and barreled his ride forward while Celeste's reeled onto its hind legs and whinnied. Celeste fell out of her saddle and hit the dirt. Shindo heard her scream a salty epithet behind him as he set the ball up and struck it with his mallet. Bap! The ball peeled between the goal posts like a mouse ducking for cover.

The crowd cheered.

"And that's the game!" the announcer shouted over the loudspeakers. "Blue won, seven to six."

Shindo's team accepted the Amsterdam gold cup then sat at a table outside the café to sign autographs. After the autograph signing, Shindo joined Satin and her gang at the bar.

"Are you here to gloat?" Satin asked.

Shindo frowned. "Of course not."

Satin turned to her cohorts. "Darn it! That means he's here to flirt."

Celeste snickered.

Faora tugged Celeste's arm. "Let's let them have their moment."

Celeste grabbed the nutcracker from the nut bowl on the bar. "If you need me," she said to Satin, flexing the nutcracker in Shindo's direction, "just shout."

Faora dragged Celeste to a table. She didn't do a good job of giving them privacy. She sat at a table with line of sight to the bar, put her chin in her hand, and dreamily watched Shindo and Satin as though she were watching her favorite soap while Celeste kept a bulldog eye on them as she cracked walnuts with the nutcracker.

Satin regarded her watchful companions, sucked on the toothpick umbrella from her drink, and then said to Shindo, "Let's get some fresh air."

Shindo ordered a Martini and accompanied Satin outside. They went to a nearby park where the late afternoon shadows lazily stretched across the cobbled path. Now that the game was over, Satin had taken off her helmet and let her hair spill over her shoulders. Even matted and disheveled from a hard workout, she still carried herself like a class act. Her brown-eyed gaze was professionally cool, yet she had an adolescent spark that excited Shindo. He yearned to know what kept that spark burning.

"Seriously, Shindo," she stirred her beverage, "I didn't appreciate what you were doing during the match. When I win I want to win because I'm better than my opponent, not because my opponent is playing around."

"You have a strong sense of honor."

"I just like beating people. I can't beat you if you're not performing at your best."

"Hm," Shindo intoned thoughtfully. "Now I have a serious question for you. If adults can't play during a game, when can they play?"

Satin searched his gaze to confirm his intent. "What kind of adults are we talking about?"

"Consenting ones, of course." Shindo sucked the juice from the lemon slice of his Martini and flicked the rind into a trashcan.

Satin breathed deeply of the sultry air. "Tonight would have been perfect."

"Would have been?" Shindo bristled. "Let's make it perfect." He ventured to put his arm around her waist.

Satin pulled out his reach. "I can't. I must catch a plane tonight."

"Tonight? You just competed in one of the biggest events in polo. Anyone else would at least spend the night in town to rest up."

"I'm not trying to be hard on you. Honest."

Shindo sensed a "this time" implied by her tone, as in "I'm not try to be hard on you (this time)." It was aggravating to hear her admit that up until now she had been deliberately playing hard to get.

"Listen," Satin added, "to prove to you I'm not giving you the brush off, I'm expected at a party at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore. Meet me there." She provided the time and date.

"Will Celeste and Faora be attending?" Shindo hoped not.

"I never go anywhere without the girls," Satin twinkled.

"So I noticed," Shindo drained his glass. "Whenever I'm around you, Celeste gets riled as though I'm stealing food off her plate."

Satin laughed. "Celeste is afraid you will woo me away from the gang. The gang is all she has."

"With you gone she would be in charge."

"It's not that simple. Anyway, I must warn you. I have a boyfriend."

Shindo reacted with a start. He recalled the men she had worked for: Chiang Mi Shek, Erik Strong, despots and monsters all of them. Erik Strong turned out to be not just a monster figuratively, but literally. Was this the type of man she had given her heart to? The bitter taste of rejection soured his mouth.

"If you have a boyfriend then why should I meet you in Singapore?" he asked.

Satin squeezed his hand. This was the first time she touched him with real affection. "Come anyway. Please. You never know what might happen."

#

On the flight to Tokyo, Shindo brooded over Satin's invitation. The female mercenary didn't play games. If she wanted him to meet her at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, it could mean she wasn't completely sold on the man she was with, or their relationship was turning cold and she needed to explore her options. Hope sprang eternal, but Shindo kept it in check. Only a kid would let hope run wild.

At any rate, Shindo thought of an excuse to convince his boss, Goro Yamashita, to extend his leave. He would never rest until he saw this affair through to the bitter end.

Yamashita greeted him when he came into the office. "Congratulations on winning the Amsterdam gold cup. I trust you enjoyed your trip."

"Splendid, sir," Shindo closed the door and approached Yamashita's desk. "Before we get down to business I want to say something."

"Hold your thought. Take a seat."

His boss seemed to be in high spirits. To help keep Yamashita in a good mood, Shindo complied.

Yamashita slid a dossier across his desk. "Our Malaysian sources delivered good news yesterday. They located that pirate Dango."

"The same Dango who murdered a grandson of the Imperial family?"

"The very one."

Dango's cutthroats seized a passenger liner, overwhelmed security, and held the Emporer's son Prince Toshi, Toshi's wife and children for ransom. Once he received his money, Dango murdered Toshi's eldest son as a parting gift. Dango has been at the top of Japan's wanted list ever since.

The general public assumed piracy was a flamboyant chapter in history, but it was alive and well, gritty and cruel. It was especially rife in the narrow straits between Malaysia and Indonesia where thousands of islands offered unlimited hideouts and ambush points. These were Dango's hunting grounds.

Shindo opened the dossier and studied the intelligence photo. Dango was in his mid forties, with short, wiry gray hair. His complexion was weathered to a leathery brown. In the photo he wore a soiled T-shirt, worn jeans, and a hefty sidearm strapped to his side. His chest appeared sunken under his shirt, but his bare arms rippled with muscle, a result of a sparse diet combined with hard living. The firm line of Dango's mouth and glassy eyes portrayed a man whose soul had dried up long ago. Money was about all that kept this man's heart pumping. "Will I be required to liquidate the target?"

"No." Yamashita folded his hands on his desk, leaned forward, and looked at Shindo gravely. "Dango is attending a symposium on GFAJ-1 bacteria. We want to know why an international criminal has taken an interest in microbiology. Are you familiar with the headlines about the GFAJ-1 strain?"

Shindo riffled through his memories. "That's the strain of bacteria which can thrive in an arsenic-rich environment."

"Correct. The scientific community is thrilled because if life can exist in a poisonous environment, it might thrive on Titan or Europa, places in our solar system which would otherwise be considered uninhabitable. My concern," Yamashita tapped his desk, "is how this strain can be turned into a bio-weapon. Imagine a pirate utilizing germ warfare. Dango could poison a shipping lane for kilometers all around, killing the crews and plundering the ships without resistance. He could even utilize such a weapon on an entire coastline. Find out about Dango's interest in this stuff and wait for further instructions."

"Very good, sir. Where will I meet Dango?"

"In Singapore," Yamashita gathered Shindo's airline ticket, cover ID, and passport from the paperwork on his desk, "at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. We arranged for your attendance at the symposium as a research assistant from Tokyo University." Yamashita provided the date and time, which coincided with the date and time Satin would be at the hotel.

Shindo didn't need a leave extension. He would be seeing Satin on company time.

He accepted the materials for his mission, keeping his cool while his mind whirled at this wild convergence of events. Dango—Satin—showing up at a science symposium, the thought occurred to Shindo that Dango might be her lover. Or she might be working for him. Or both. Hopefully neither. The sooner Shindo sorted out to what extent she was involved with the pirate the sooner he could put his mind at ease.

"Now," Yamashita smiled, "you wanted to say something?"

"Hm? Uh, only that it is good to be back."

Yamashita waited, expecting to hear more. "Oh," he smiled more broadly, "it's good to have you back." He shook Shindo's hand. "Good luck and good hunting!"

 **Chapter 2**

Gary Culmin got together with a couple of college buddies, Chris and Pete, at Bea's Comedy Club. They killed time at the bar before the show started.

He felt funny inside. A mixture of relief, melancholy, and a touch of hope. It was the sort of mix he imagined the Europeans must have felt after World War Two. The debris had been cleaned from the streets, the dead had been laid to rest, and the grass was turning the yards green again.

Two years ago, Super Allosaurus surfaced on the Pacific coast and smashed through America's heartland from San Francisco to New York City. It was the first time a giant monster, a "kaiju" as Japanese called them, attacked the United States. The populace was left shell-shocked.

Gary was in Japan when Super Allosaurus set Detroit ablaze. His parents had evacuated in time, but three of his friends, David, Michelle, and Steve, did not. Like grizzled combat veterans he and his buddies tossed back a beer, shared their memories of their fallen friends, and then ordered another beer.

The music at the club was loud and the room was bustling. A girl sidled up the bar next to them. She smiled at Gary. She had snow-white hair, ice-blue eyes, and an effusive expression, but her teeth were bit large, giving her a chipmunk grin. Gary focused a moment too long on that one feature and the girl read his reaction as disinterest.

Aw crud, Gary thought. I did it again!

He tried to recover his lost opportunity, but the girl had already started up a conversation with Pete. By the time the show started, Pete got the girl's name—Stacy—her phone number and a date, a date Gary should've had.

Two years! A young man in his twenties who has not had a date for that long might as well call himself celibate. Or a loser.

Or depressed.

Frustrated.

All those words worked.

Gary kicked himself from being picky. Ever since Lilla, Mothra's Fairy, stayed with him at the cottage in Japan during Super Allosaurus's reign of terror, he compared every girl he met to her. Lilla was a flawless beauty. No human woman could compare to her and Gary knew he needed to stop making comparisons. The problem was he fell in love with her.

While everyone else laughed at the comedian's jokes, Gary sat with his elbow on the little round table and the side of his face slumped in his hand.

You idiot, he thought to himself. Even if you could have Lilla, she's twelve inches tall!

He glanced over to Stacy. She only had eyes for Pete. Gary was shut out of her world now.

After the disappointing evening, Gary buried himself in his work at the construction site in one of the neighborhoods which Super Allosaurus had devastated. He volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. His family was lucky. They received their claim check for their lost property before the insurance company filed for bankruptcy. Their home was one of the few which had been rebuilt shortly after the city's destruction. Gary felt it was only right, as one of the lucky ones, to help those who weren't as fortunate.

"Are you going back to school this semester?" one of his fellow volunteers asked.

"Naw, I don't think so."

"Don't wait too long! The longer you wait the harder it is to get started again."

"Yeah, I know."

Gary dismissed everything he didn't want to discuss with those words: "Yeah, I know."

When he came home, his dad said, "It's time we talk."

His mom and dad set him down at the kitchen table. He dreaded the direction this was going to go.

"Gary," his mom said, "it's been two years since you've been to school. The rest of your friends got back on their feet and resumed their education. You need to finish your degree, too."

"The longer you put off finishing school," his dad added, "the further you're going to fall behind. It takes time to build a career and put away money for retirement."

"Yeah, I know," Gary shifted uneasily in his seat.

"Don't 'yeah, I know' us," his mother tapped the table with a testy fingernail. She calmed herself and expressed her concern. "We're worried you might be suffering from post traumatic shock."

"What?" Gary shot up in his chair. "How can I be suffering from shock? I wasn't even here when Super Allosaurus attacked. I was in Japan."

"Yes, but your friends and your aunt had passed away. And you had been attacked at the cottage."

His parents referred to when Satin and her gang raided the cottage to get Godzilla. Their employer, Chiang Mi Shek, had shrunk Godzilla to human-size so he could process Godzilla in such a way in which he could control him. Both Godzilla and Lilla stayed with Gary at the cottage in Japan.

Gary never told his parents that he had been shot in the raid, died, and resurrected by Mothra. His parents would insist he was suffering from traumatic stress for sure if they found all that out.

No, he suffered from unrequited love, which he couldn't tell his parents about either. They would think something else was wrong with him if they knew he had fallen for one of Mothra's Fairies.

"I'm fine," Gary insisted.

He failed to muster the conviction to convince his parents.

"All right," his dad set down the rules. "Since you're fine, you are going to register for class this coming semester. If you don't, you're going to get counseling. Which is it going to be?"

#

Godzilla surfaced in the port of Jakarta amidst wailing sirens and screams. For a tiny species, frightened humans made such a racket. As far as he was concerned the fools should've expected trouble. Stockpiling fresh fish out on the dock attracted hungry stomachs.

The time he had spent among the humans when he had been shrunken down to their size had changed his attitude. He recalled one human in particular, Gary Culmin. Godzilla remembered him because Gary fed him. Animals never forget those who feed them. Since then he avoided crushing humans underfoot, unless they refused to get out of his way. Then what happened next was their problem, not his. One time he had even rescued a human. On Letchi Island, Godzilla spotted a band of humans attacking a lone human female. He shooed her attackers away with a mighty roar. It just seemed like the fair thing to do.

Godzilla stepped onto the docks and stomped through the warehouses. Dock workers scurried like insects, rushing for cover. He barely stepped away from the water's edge when he felt something snap hold of his tale with the force of a steel trap. Godzilla let out an enraged roar.

Whatever had a hold of him didn't let go. It yanked him off his feet and dragged him back to the water.

Godzilla twisted around and saw that his assailant was Ebirah. The giant lobster's claws had been restored. He must've braved the terrible journey to the Fountain of Life. For a moment Godzilla felt respect for Ebirah and then threw himself into battle mode.

The port turned into a gladiatorial arena for the two monsters. Godzilla kicked Ebirah right in the mandibles, sending the sea monster sailing halfway across the bay. The water swelled on both sides of the port, flipping cargo ships onto the docks. Their container boxes spilled from the decks.

Godzilla roared. Now Ebirah had a new injury he could take to the Fountain of Life!

The giant lobster worked his jaws and gingerly tapped them with his forelegs. His mandibles were still firm. He let out a whistling screech, eager to renew the fight.

Godzilla thrust a cargo ship at Ebirah like a battering ram.

Ebirah seized it in his pincers.

They pushed back and forth, trying to slam one another into the port facilities. The ship folded up between them, bringing them within each other's reach. They slugged it out.

Indonesian helicopter gunships joined the conflict. They launched rockets. Their chain guns chattered, spewing hyper-velocity bullets. All the firepower the Indonesians brought to bear ricocheted off the monsters' hide.

Godzilla and Ebirah ignored them. Their pride was at stake. Godzilla had beaten the sea monster twice and wasn't about to let the crustacean win now, but Ebirah, having tasted defeat once too often, was hungry for victory. He grabbed Godzilla's throat with one pincer and bashed him over the head with a tug boat.

With his larynx constricted, Godzilla couldn't draw in his breath to exhale his atomic ray. A raspy cry hissed from his wounded throat. He clawed at Ebirah's carapace, leaving deep grooves, but drawing not one drop of blood from the thick shell. His pulse hammered in his head, his ears rang, and his focus turned to mush. The lack of air sucked his strength.

Godzilla went slack in Ebirah's grip.

Ebirah raised his pincers, poised to pierce Godzilla's skull through the eye sockets. He paused to show he could kill Godzilla if he wished and then released him.

Godzilla's body bobbed in the water. The helicopters circled him like vultures, pelting him with their guns.

Better to let him live in his shame, Ebirah thought as he returned to the sea, than to put him out of his misery.

#

Gary lay in bed, worrying about what to do. He didn't want to go back to school when he knew he wouldn't be able to concentrate on in his studies. If there was just someway he could root out his fixation with Lilla.

When a tooth goes bad, a dentist can extract it; or if the tonsils swell, a surgeon can perform a tonsillectomy. What do you do when your heart is infected with unwanted feelings?

"You worry too much," a pair of familiar voices spoke in unison.

Gary froze.

"Do not be afraid," the voices said.

Gary listened.

The only sound he heard came from his clock.

"Learn to be happy in times of trouble," the voices spoke once more. "When you do, we will return."

The voices were of the Twin Fairies, but Gary didn't hear them speak with his ears. He heard them in his head. Of all places! His parents already thought he was going crazy, and now he had voices speaking to him in his head.

He kept to himself during breakfast, which didn't help ease his parents' worries, and he didn't sleep well the following night. It was hard to say if he had received a telepathic message. The voices manifested in such a subtle tone they teetered on the boundary between imagination and reality. They were certainly cryptic like the Fairies, like mentors pushing their apprentice to think.

The best thing to do was forget about it and get back to the real problem: school or counseling.

That night he watched Letterman in his bedroom. The news interrupted the show. "Godzilla has come ashore in Jakarta!"

Gary smiled fondly. Godzilla was a blast to have at the cottage, provided Lilla kept a tight reign on him.

The news showed footage of Godzilla crushing the warehouses underfoot. "Experts" from Washington weighed in on the sinister motives which drove the kaiju into populated areas. One said, "These creatures are the result of the atomic age. Our nuclear tests in the 40s and 50s generated a force of evil. We attacked Nature and Nature is striking back."

"Naw," Gary rebutted the TV broadcast. "Godzilla is in Jakarta for one of three reasons: he's looking for something to eat, a place to sleep, or someone to beat up."

The broadcaster became excited again. "A second monster has surfaced in the port of Jakarta! We're taking you there live…"

An onsite camera crew showed a giant lobster yanking Godzilla by the tail. Godzilla turned and kicked the crustacean in the chops.

"I told ya," Gary said. "He's there either for food, sleep, or a fight."

"We just lost our news feed!" the broadcaster cried. Godzilla's tussling brought a tidal wave atop the news cameraman. The broadcaster and his partner at the news desk stared in panic at their off-camera monitor.

Gary switched off the TV. He was not worried about Godzilla. Not after spending a month feeding and cleaning up after him. Godzilla seemed more like an old roommate than a threat.

Gary pulled his covers up to his chin, sighed, and resumed his worrying as if fretting were his duty.

Then the voices spoke. "We have returned as we had promised."

Gary switched on the light and searched the room. "Who's speaking?" he whispered. "Is this Lilla and Arana?"

"Of course it is us," the voices said. "We promised we would not forget you."

Gary remembered the night in Tokyo when he last saw the Twin Fairies. He had asked, "Will I ever see you again?"

They said, "Of course. We will not forget you."

He became choked up with emotion. Hearing from them again was like receiving an answer to prayer.

"Be at peace," the Twin Fairies said. "You dwell on your feelings too deeply."

"No duh! You know how I feel about one of you."

"We do."

"Where are you?" Gary continued to whisper. "I can't see you."

"You will. We asked you to learn how to be happy so you would not be burdened by your problems. Sadly, you will have to carry them with you."

"What do you mean?"

"Get dressed."

"Dressed?"

"Yes."

Gary hesitated. "Am I supposed to wear anything in particular?"

"Wear something durable."

Gary got up and put on a sweatshirt, blue jeans, and socks and tennis shoes. "Is this good?"

"Yes. Now go to your uncle's boat."

"Will you be there?"

"No, but go to the boat and wait."

Gary became edgy. It was one thing to talk to these voices in his head, but once he stepped out of his room he was committing himself to an act of faith. What if his parents caught him sneaking out of the house? What explanation would he give? Now he understood how Noah or Moses must have felt when God gave them instructions.

In any case, it occurred to him the Fairies might be preparing him for a journey. His parents should know where he went. He took a piece of scrap paper and a pen, and thought hard on what to write. Even this note would be a statement of faith.

"Mom and Dad," he wrote, "I went to Infant Island. I'm visiting some old friends. Don't worry. I will return. I promise. Love, Gary."

Gary crept out of the house and rushed across the yard to his uncle's house down the street. The night air worked like a splash of cold water in the face. His doubts assailed him. You dummy, what are you doing out here, they said to him. Get back inside!

He felt like a thief as he snuck onto his uncle's property and went to the pier. Both his uncle and his parents lived on the lake. His uncle owned a hundred foot cabin cruiser.

Gary got in, ducked low and hoped no one spotted him.

"Now what?" he whispered.

"Untie the boat and push it toward the center of the lake," the Twin Fairies said.

"What? I can't do that. The only way I can get it back to the pier is to turn the motor on and that'll wake my uncle. I'll get in trouble!"

The Fairies didn't respond.

Gary sensed that if he didn't do as he was told he would be left to sit, in the dark, risking getting caught in his uncle's boat.

He followed their instructions and pushed the boat away from the pier. One person couldn't push a boat this size far. Nudging it was the best Gary achieved. But the boat drifted from the pier.

"Now what?" Gary pleaded softly for a quick answer.

His answer came, but not from the Fairies. The moonlight was blotted out as Mothra winged her way over the lake. Her multi-faceted eyes glowed like blue sapphires. She gestured with her front pair of legs.

Gary didn't understand what the gestures meant, but he realized he had better brace himself.

Mothra swooped down, snatched the boat from the lake and soared over the weary city of Detroit.

#

Tomoko Mahiko of NHK news did a live report from the port of Jakarta. "Godzilla is still unconscious after his fight with the south seas terror, Ebirah." She extended her mike to General Susumu Fujita of the Japanese Self-Defense Force. "Now, you deployed electrified nets against Godzilla before. Why do you believe they will be effective this time?"

The stalwart general squinted in the camera lights. "We have two advantages which we lacked in our previous engagement. First, our generators can produce twice the output than the old ones. Second, Godzilla is unconscious, floating in the port. Our nets will not only electrify Godzilla, but electrify the water as well, thus amplifying the attack."

"When will the operation start?"

"Fifteen minutes."

"Thank you, General."

General Fujita nodded to Tomoko.

The Japanese SDF, at Indonesia's request, set up generators on either side of the port and stretched metal nets over Godzilla's inert, floating body. The evening hours were fast approaching and General Fujita spurred his men to complete preparations while they still had light to work by.

"Nets are set and ready," Fujita's second-in-command called over the load speakers. "All personnel clear the combat area. Operation set to begin at zero." A few straggling soldiers and Jakarta police officers scrambled from the docks. Fujita authorized the countdown. "Ten…nine…eight…" Army engineers at the power stations placed their hands on the controls to switch on the power. "Seven…six…" Then Fujita saw Godzilla's eyes flutter through his binoculars. "He's waking up!"

Godzilla awoke with a soar throat, a throbbing head, and an ugly mood. He heard the human voice call out over the loudspeakers, "five…four…" and then another shouting, "Turn the power on! Now!"

Godzilla stood up in the bay, tearing the nets from the generators. He let out an angry roar, grabbed the nets from his shoulders, and threw them onto the dock like a bundle of chain mail blankets.

The sirens started up and tanks, which were skulking in the warehouse wreckage, opened fire at him.

He shot them a fierce look. The glare in his eyes said, "Get real!" as the tank shells exploded harmlessly off his tough, gray-green hide.

After Ebirah bushwhacked him, Godzilla lost his appetite for tuna. He wanted shellfish, a kaiju-sized one with newly regenerated claws. He dove for the sea.

The hunt was on.

 **Chapter 3**

At the science symposium Shindo expected to be the square peg trying to fit into a round hole, or rather the round peg in the square hole. Surprisingly, a quite a few members of the jet set attended the GFAJ-1 symposium as well, which allowed Shindo to do two things, find good conversation and mask his ignorance of microbiology.

But the scientists often interrupted and the socialites indulged them. The dialogue often went like this: "Hi, I'm Dr. So-n-so of Such-n-such University. Aren't you Bruce Morgan, CEO of JP Morgan?"

"Yes, I am Bruce Morgan. No, I am not an executive of that firm, but I do own sixty-eight percent of their stock. You know, I always wanted to be a scientist. As a boy, I used to put a drop of pond water on a slide and look at the tiny critters wriggling around in the water through a microscope." The speaker sighed self-indulgently. "But life took me in a different direction."

"Really?" Dr. So-n-so feigned interest. "Perhaps you'd like to hear about the work I'm doing."

It was like listening to a pick up line for a grant, which was what the social gathering amounted to, a meat market for donations.

The Marina Bay Sands hotel staff kept the champagne and hors d'oeuvre stocked to decadent levels in the conference room.

Shindo drained a second glass of Veuve Clicquot and checked his watch. He invested forty-five minutes in commingling. That should be enough to convince Dango that he was not here to spy on him. The Indonesian pirate had kept an eye out on everyone else. Now it was time to keep an eye on him.

Dango dressed in a simple charcoal-gray blazer with a gold mariner chain necklace and black slacks. His outfit helped him blend with the shadows, which might have been the point. He didn't socialize. He merely stood against the wall with one hand in his pants pocket.

Presently he occupied an empty table. He could be waiting for his contact, or orders. In any case, Shindo couldn't approach him without arousing suspicion. It would be conspicuous of him, a Japanese, to take a sudden interest in Dango when no one else did. Dango was still a wanted man in Japan. He'd guess right away Shindo was a government agent.

"Yamaguchi-san!" Satin purred sweetly. "Enjoying yourself?"

Shindo didn't see her coming. One minute she was nowhere in sight, the next minute she was at his side. She looked stunning in her turquoise evening gown.

"Where've you been hiding?"

"Hiding? Where can I hide?" She swept her upraised palm toward their open surroundings. "You didn't notice me because you've been too busy watching him," she nodded toward Dango and then sipped her champagne.

Shindo blushed. "All right, I take it back."

"Don't worry about it. I know you're deliciously jealous." Satin licked her upper lip. "No sense being a wallflower. Come on, I'll introduce you."

"Wait!"

Satin linked her arm with Shindo's and dragged him toward Dango.

The pirate hunched in his seat like a cornered dog. He looked ready to snarl.

"Dango," Satin said, "I want you to meet my friend, Shindo Yamaguchi."

"Who's he?" Dango demanded.

Shindo felt the sweat building under his arms. His cover was at Satin's mercy.

"I told you," Satin said, "a friend. He's a government worker."

"What kind of government worker?" Dango balled his fists.

"Don't blow your stack, Captain Hook. He's an office boy."

"What's an office boy doing here?" Dango narrowed his eyes to slits, scrutinizing Shindo.

"Good question!" Satin asked Shindo, "What are you doing here? I thought polo is your game, not bacteria doped up on arsenic."

Shindo exhaled and gave her an annoyed look.

Satin smirked, enjoying putting the Japanese spy on the hot seat.

"He's here to see the sights." She shifted her hips suggestively.

"Oh," Dango intoned in distaste. "Are you getting bored with him?" In other words, Dango asked if she was tired of Shindo making a pass at her and wanted him to orchestrate Shindo's disappearance, perhaps at the bottom of Marina Bay.

"No! I figured with your mutual interest in sailing you two would have much to talk about. Oh, and Shindo is a well-paid public employee. He will be missed if anything happens. Understand?" She glared at Dango. "Missed."

Dango's lips puckered as though he swallowed a lemon.

"Play nice, boys," Satin cheerfully said to them and left Shindo with an empty champagne glass, feeling awkward.

Dango stared, expecting Shindo to say something and make it quick.

Satin's stunt put Shindo off his game. He cleared his throat, said, "excuse me," and caught up with the beautiful mercenary.

"Is that your idea of helping?" He grabbed her arm and yanked her around to face him.

"No. It's my idea of having fun. You screw around when I'm trying to play a serious game. I screw around when you're trying to do serious work."

"Are you having fun or getting even?"

"Getting even is fun."

They fell silent. Their stares locked like sabers.

"Do you want a refill?" Satin broke the tension. She touched his hand holding the empty glass.

"No, I'm fine." Shindo got his head together.

"Take half of mine." She poured a portion of her drink into his glass.

"It's too bad we can't get coordinated."

"Get what more coordinated? Screwing?"

"Don't be crass. We're in public."

"See," Satin tipped her glass toward him, "this is why we will never work out. You want to be like me, free spirited, but you can't because you're too much like your boss. Stuffy, high bound, and by the book."

Shindo had to admit she was right. He joined the secret service for the thrill of adventure, but he could never go the distance like Satin. He wanted to remain within the boundary of the law, which proved her point. He was by the book, stuffy, and… "High bound?"

"OK," Satin grinned. "You're not high bound. And I take back 'stuffy.' But you're by the book."

"I'll accept 'by the book.'" He tinged his glass against hers. They reached an understanding. "Sorry to be critical," Shindo said, "but you picked another winner for an employer."

"Dango?" Satin's voice ranged incredulously. "I don't work for him."

"He's not your boyfriend is he?" Shindo shifted into panic mode.

Satin laughed, covering her mouth. "Come on! That gutter rat? I prefer my men dashing, like you."

"Then…" Before Shindo could finish his question a hotel staff member called for everyone's attention.

"Ladies and gentleman, please welcome our host, whose generosity has made this symposium possible, his Excellency, Commander Yamoto!"

Yamoto? Shindo thought. Not THE Commander Yamoto.

Armed guards swept aside the double doors. The guests and lecturers applauded as a man with an eye patch and dressed in a white uniform and a peeked officer's cap strode in. He saluted them with his swagger stick.

Yes, it was Commander Yamoto of the notorious terrorist organization, the Red Bamboo.

"Thank you," the commander said. "I hope you like the appetizers. Dinner will be served at seventeen hundred hours sharp. Our first lecture begins in twenty-five minutes. Enjoy the remainder of your afternoon."

The crowded applauded and Yamoto availed himself with the air of a general greeting his troops.

Satin abandoned Shindo and flung her arms around the terrorist commander. They kissed longingly. When she pulled away, slowly, reluctantly, she looked like she needed a cigarette.

"Shindo," she said, dreamy-eyed. "Meet my boyfriend, Commander Yamoto."

#

Mothra flew Gary to Infant Island where the chief of the natives and the tribal elders welcomed the American youth as a hero.

"Listen," Gary said, "I didn't do much. Lilla did all the work. She made certain Godzilla and I got along and rescued me from Chiang and…what is it?"

As he spoke, the Chief and elders' mood changed from smiles to searing glares. Gary wondered if he had spoken blasphemy.

"Who is this Lilla?" the Chief demanded.

"Lilla…one of Mothra's Fairies? You all should know who Lilla is."

"The true names of the Twin Fairies are sacred. They are not to be spoken by mortal lips. Not even we have been entrusted with them." The crowd grumbled. The words "defiler" and "sacrilege" passed between them.

Gary's welcoming party was turning into a lynch mob.

"Look," Gary shouted to be heard, "I asked for her name and she gave it to me! How should I know I was entrusted with something unspeakable? Besides, if the Twin Fairies never gave you their names how do you know they gave me their real ones?"

"You accuse Mothra's Fairies of lying!" The Chief thrust an accusing finger at Gary.

An elder shouted "Blasphemer!" The guards shook their spears in the air.

Gary searched for an escape route. He had his back to the sea and a mob of angry natives in front of him. Not good.

Then Mothra bleated a plaintive chirp.

The natives ceased their rabble rousing and bowed their heads to the ground with their arms outstretched. Mothra, flapping in the air, chided them with a series of chirps and bleats, and then swooped down, picked up the cabin cruiser which she had set on the shore, and flew away with it to another part of the island.

Gary gulped. Now what?

The Chief rose. "Mothra's Fairies will see you now."

"What about my boat?"

"Mothra has taken it to the lagoon. You may fetch it later. Come."

The Chief and the elders escorted Gary to the Court of Happiness, a temple situated in a cave massive enough to contain Mothra and the island's entire population. At the far end of the chamber was an alcove with small pillars. There the Twin Fairies waited.

They dismissed the Chief and elders and effusively greeted Gary.

"You two are a ray of sunshine after what I just went through." Gary checked to be sure the Chief and his band were well out of ear shot. He explained what happened.

"The islanders do not want outsiders to know our secrets," the Fairies said in unison.

"Did you tell me the truth?"

"You wanted a name," the Fairy who said she was Lilla spoke, "and I gave you one. You accepted it and so have I. Between us, Lilla is my name."

"Likewise, I accept Arana as my name," the other Fairy said.

"So these names are a private thing between you and me?"

"Yes," the Fairies nodded.

Gary liked that. "Is it OK I mention these names in public?"

"We would warn you if they were not to be spoken."

Gary asked why they invited him to the island.

"Because we missed you, and you missed us. So the time was right."

Gary then asked what they meant by learning to be happy in times of trouble.

"We wanted you to learn how stop worrying so you can enjoy your visit to our island. You are young. You have plenty of time to figure out what you want to do with your life."

"My problem is…" Gary looked at Lilla. "You know my problem. What is your advice for that?"

"Simple. You fell in love with a girl before, yes?"

"Yeah."

"Be patient. You will fall in love again."

"But no woman is like you, Lilla. You're perfect."

"Every woman a man falls in love with is perfect. Anyway, when we show you who and what we really are, you may not love me anymore."

Gary lost his excitement and filled up with trepidation.

"Don't worry," The Fairies smiled. "It won't be horrible."

After Gary's welcoming party turned into an angry rabble, how could he be sure?

#

According to the official report from the United Nations, Ebirah destroyed a Red Bamboo ship off the coast of Letchi Island, killing all hands. Commander Yamoto was aboard that ship. Shindo had read that report and was skeptical of its accuracy. The ship was close enough to the shore for survivors to swim ashore. It appeared that his skepticism was well-founded because Commander Yamoto was here, at the hotel, alive and well.

"Shindo Yamaguchi," Commander Yamoto extended his hand, "it's a pleasure to finally meet you."

"Is it?" Shindo shook hands with Yamoto. The Red Bamboo officer's grip made him wince. Yamoto must've been trying to prove he was stronger. Shindo tried to prove him wrong.

They increased the pressure on each other's hands until Yamoto released his grip. He could have crushed Shindo's hand if he wanted to. Shindo realized too late that Yamoto wasn't trying to prove who was stronger. He was testing Shindo's ego and by trying to outmuscle the commander, Shindo had made himself look insecure.

Yamoto now spoke to him as though he had him pegged. "Of course we know all about you."

"Glad my reputation preceded me. Who's we?"

Dango joined Commander Yamoto's side.

The pieces now fit together. Satin didn't work for Dango. They both worked for Yamoto.

Yamoto chuckled. "No need to be defensive. Waiter!"

A hotel staffer rushed up with a pad and pen.

"Get me a Stingray. What will you have, dear?" Yamoto squeezed Satin and kissed her temple. She squirmed desirously in his grip.

Shindo witnessed just how far out of reach Satin really was. All this time he thought he was reeling her in bit by bit. In truth, she was only becoming a friend, not a lover.

Now he desired her all the more. He must win her over and humiliate that self-absorbed Red Bamboo thug.

"I'll select a drink from the appetizer table," Satin said.

Yamoto dismissed the champagne selection. "That's for the guests."

"Very well. A Smith & Wesson."

The waiter wrote down her order.

"Shindo?" Yamoto prompted him to order a cocktail, too.

"The same as the Commander," Shindo told the waiter, "but heavy on the Amaretto and no syrup. The Amaretto is sweet enough."

Yamoto cocked his brow. "You do realize the recipe I drink is enjoyed by soldiers."

"You don't think a civilian can handle his liquor?" Shindo smirked.

"You wish to prove you are my equal?" The Red Bamboo commander looked him in the eye, accepting his challenge. "Very well, we'll see."

The lectures failed to rouse Shindo's interest, but he forced himself to stay awake because Yamoto stayed awake. Satin nodded off on the commander's shoulder. She looked so sweet. The mercenary became golden to Shindo, a prize. The Holy Grail, Excalibur's Sword, the lost Ark of the Covenant, trinkets compared to her.

She and Yamoto sat across the aisle, while Shindo was stuck next to Dango. Nothing unsettled the nerves more than sitting next to a man who might slip a shiv between your ribs. The Indonesian pirate also reeked of aftershave and boat exhaust. Life had a nasty sense of humor.

The symposium took a break at seven sharp for dinner and at eight the symposium's participants danced in the music hall. Yamoto and Satin delighted the participants with an elegant waltz under the spotlight. He twirled her around like a king showing off his queen. The crowded showered them with applause at their finale.

Time to bring Yamoto back down to Earth, Shindo thought.

"Mind if I take your lady out onto the floor?" Shindo asked when they rejoined the crowd.

In a show of confidence, Yamoto granted his blessing with a nod.

Shindo kindly grasped Satin's gloved hand and took her out under the spotlight.

"I've never known you to be stupid," she whispered. "Why are you doing this? You're shoving your hand into the bear's mouth. Do I mean that much to you?"

Shindo brushed aside her concern. "Are we going to be coordinated this time?"

Her brow furrowed but her brown eyes twinkled. "All right, you asked for this!"

"Just make it memorable."

The Japanese spy and female mercenary steamed up the dance hall with a Latin tango. They started with simple steps—slow, slow quick, quick, slow—then teased the audience with playful moves before taking their breath away with dips and tight pivots. Satin entwined her leg around his and arched her back. He ran his hand across her outstretched stomach. She then swung back into his arms. Their moves flowered into courtship. Yamoto's dance with Satin sent the message that she was his property. Shindo's dance with her said they belonged to each other.

When they finished, the audience whooped. Their applause roared like thunder.

Shindo and Satin bowed and stepped off the floor holding hands. He returned her to her lover, who applauded, too, grudgingly.

"Very nice, both of you," Yamoto pulled Satin to his side. This time she wasn't as excited about being held by him as she was earlier in the evening.

Yamoto noticed her change of temperament and said to Shindo, "I indulged you, Yamaguchi-san. Will you indulge me?"

"How so?"

"I challenge you to a contest in marksmanship. You should find this easy; after all you have the use of both eyes."

The Red Bamboo commander wanted to bring guns into this.

"I accept your challenge," Shindo said. "Where and when?"

"Right now, up on the skypark."

"Will the hotel manager approve?"

"This is Singapore. You can buy anything, including a manager's approval."

"Fine," Shindo said. "You're on."

The hotel's skypark looked like a deck of a ship set atop three skyscrapers. The view of the city was glorious. Everyone gathered at the skypark's bow.

"To be fair we will use the same firearm," Yamoto said. To his sergeant he barked, "Gun!"

The sergeant handed over his sidearm.

"The CF-98 9mm automatic has an effective range of fifty meters," Yamoto explained as he checked the weapon. "We will set the targets at fifty-five." To his men he shouted, "Set targets at fifty-five meters!"

His troops carried out their orders, setting two target boards at fifty-five meters.

Yamoto handed Shindo the gun. "You first."

At this range, the weapon's site nearly blotted out the view of the target and the wind would turn the slightest miscalculation into a complete miss. Shindo aimed the pistol, set his mind at ease as the breeze buffeted him, and systematically fired six rounds.

The guards retrieved the target board. All rounds pierced the chest. One even nicked the heart.

"Very good," Yamoto pointed out the hits to the spectators. "Only one strike to the heart, but all wounds would be fatal. My turn." He waved away Shindo's target board and fired one-handed at his target in quick succession. Bam! Bam! Bam! "Bring the board forward."

The guards did so. The spectators gasped at the hole punched into the target where the heart had been. Every shot was dead on. Yamoto smiled as they clapped.

Yamoto's swiftness awed Shindo more than the accuracy. He raised his arm and fired without pausing to aim. Stronger, swifter—Shindo cringed at the thought of engaging the Red Bamboo terrorist in a real fight.

"You are welcome to stay for the last lecture," Yamoto returned the gun to his sergeant, "but I advise you to go home now while you can. The game I play is for soldiers, not civilians."

"I'll stay," Shindo replied. "The lectures on bacteria are illuminating. You never know when the information will be handy to counter germ warfare."

"Is that what you think this is about?" Yamoto laughed. "Then you're right. You should stay for the last lecture."


	2. Chapter 2

**War of the Sea Monsters**

 **By Neil Riebe**

 **Part 2**

 **Chapter 4**

The participants returned to the lecture hall for the symposium's conclusion. The hotel staffer introduced the evening's star lecturer. "Ladies and gentleman, please give a warm welcome to our final speaker, the illustrious Dr. James Bowen."

Dr. Bowen built his career treating victims of radiation exposure. He and his research team achieved notoriety when they cared for a child who was resistant to radiation. This child grew to gigantic proportions and saved Japan from the monster Baragon.

The audience applauded the American researcher.

"Thank you! Thank you!" Bowen motioned for the applause to subside. "Be seated, please. I'm very happy to be here tonight. When I first heard of the GFAJ-1 bacteria and its ability to thrive in a toxic environment, I became excited about the potential it may hold for human health. My assistants, Drs. Sueko Togami and Kenichiro Kawaji, and I studied samples from a lake in Mongolia with similar toxic properties as Mono Lake in California. We found identical bacteria. We also found something I believe will astound you."

Dr. Bowen put a photograph of a bundle of blood-red cells in a mud-colored solution up on the screen.

"What you see is a zygote. Somehow it became dislodged from its mother. What will astound you is that this specimen is still alive."

The crowd buzzed with excitement.

"Alive," Bowen emphasized, "and dormant. The GFAJ-1 bacteria substitutes arsenic for phosphorous in cell production. Typically, arsenic disrupts metabolic pathways, thus poisoning conventional organisms. This zygote falls between the conventional and the exotic. It can't process arsenic as the GFAJ-1, but it doesn't die, either. Instead, arsenic puts it into a dormant state.

"My assistants and I immersed the zygote in a solution containing phosphorous. View the results."

Bowen put up a photograph of an embryo. The crowd gasped.

"We studied its DNA to determine its species. Our findings are not ready for peer review, but I can say this much, it is an aquatic animal, a female of its species. Its closest genetic match are animals within the suborder of Myliobatoidei, or in plain language—the stingray. We call our little girl Tryga, deriving her name from the stingray's genus name, Trygon.

"I'll be taking Tryga to Berkley where we will observe her growth under tightly controlled conditions. We don't want to create a monster," Dr. Bowen grinned. "I think we all agree the world has enough of those."

The crowd laughed.

Another monster… Shindo rubbed his chin, summing up what he learned. A terrorist, a mercenary and pirate came to a lecture to hear about an embryo which could mature into a sea monster.

Shindo rushed to his hotel room as soon as the lecture ended to prepare his report. Then he needed to warn Dr. Bowen. With his embryo in transit to Berkley, it's clear what Dango's role in this affair was.

Once Shindo entered the bedroom, he felt the business end of a silencer pressed against the side of his head and heard Celeste's brusque voice. "Don't move."

He complied. No sense in tempting her.

Celeste was right behind the bedroom door. He had walked right passed her.

Faora stepped into view from the bathroom and extracted his service pistol from under his tuxedo jacket.

"I should've figured you two would be here," Shindo chided himself. "You weren't at the lecture."

"Into the living room," Celeste ordered him curtly.

"Are we going to watch TV together?"

Faora pursed her lips, stifling her temptation to giggle.

Celeste poked Shindo in the ribs with her gun, nudging him toward the living room. Shortly, Commander Yamoto, Satin and Dango joined them.

"Funny how Celeste and Faora got into my room," Shindo chucked his key onto the sofa. "Proves you're right. Hotel managers can be bought."

"Don't be bitter," Yamoto toyed with his swagger stick. "Hotel personnel have a right to make a little money on the side as much as anyone else. Glad you stayed for Bowen's lecture. The Red Bamboo is an ambitious organization. Germ warfare falls short of our standards."

"Your brush with Ebirah should have given you an object lesson. Monsters are two-edged swords."

"We learn from our mistakes, Yamaguchi-san. I knew you would put the pieces together once you heard about the embryo. Now I must ask you to accept Mr. Dango's hospitality."

"Let's go," Dango motioned Shindo to follow him.

Satin behaved like a stalwart mourner at a wake, holding back her tears. She shook Shindo's hand, as one professional to another. "Goodbye, Shindo Yamaguchi."

Shindo was disappointed. After their dance, he expected a warmer farewell.

Faora also looked sad as though this were the end, which struck him as odd. It wasn't as though they hadn't seen him in trouble before.

"Why the long faces? I'm not dead yet."

"Yet," Celeste snickered.

Shindo straightened his jacket and followed Dango. Might as well make this dignified, he thought. Although Satin's concern piqued his curiosity. If she was worried then where was Dango taking him?

Yamoto blocked Shindo with his swagger stick. "You made an admirable attempt to steal Satin away from me. But don't feel discouraged. She and I have been lovers before you came along."

"Quite the contrary," Shindo grinned, "I don't feel discouraged at all."

"Oh and why not?"

"Because when I'm with Satin, Celeste feels threatened. When you're with her, she doesn't."

#

The Twin Fairies brought Gary outside the Court of Happiness to a pond surrounded by lush ferns and brightly colored flowers. They sat by the sparkling pool and reminisced on their time at the cottage in Japan. Even though Arana wasn't there, her telepathic connection with her sister allowed her to share in the memories as though she were. Gary felt blessed to able to "hang out" with a pair of beautiful, one-foot-tall telepaths. "I wish I can stay with you forever. I feel so relaxed here."

"Thank you," they bowed. They were genuinely grateful he enjoyed their company. "As we promised, we will show you who we really are."

"Must you?" Gary cringed. "If you're trying to dissuade me from having a crush on you, Lilla, fine, I'll stop having a crush on you."

"Be strong. What you are about to see is not for the faint of heart."

"All right," Gary braced himself. "Show me!"

The Twin Fairies telepathically revealed themselves. The beauty of their true faces excelled beyond their human ones. They were radiant, glorious, everything that made the heart soar above the clouds, yet they were not human. Their spirits were as different from human spirits as the stars were from the planets. Being in love with Lilla became impossible once he saw the truth. They just weren't in the same orbit.

Gary could see why this revelation was not for the faint of heart. One would be tempted to bow down and worship the Twin Fairies, but they weren't all powerful and neither did they desire to be worshipped and obeyed as gods. And if anyone did have strong views about the supernatural they would be in for a shock. Fortunately for Gary, he had no preconceived notions. Instead of being shocked, he felt illuminated, even relieved. Finally, he was able to dump his unwanted infatuation with Lilla.

"We are happy you are not frightened," the Fairies said. "Will you come with us?"

Gary realized while he gazed upon them he was no longer in the physical plane, but the spiritual. It seemed blazingly bright because his mind had difficulty discerning its shapes and colors.

He extended his hand and they took him to places undreamed of and the uncanny part of it was that these places were here on Earth in the dimensions undetectable by human senses. Nothing they did correlated with the three-dimensional world so when they returned Gary's spirit to his body he couldn't recall any of his experiences. All he could say was that they must've had a lot of fun because he hadn't felt this exhilarated since he was a boy.

Seeing the Twin Fairies in their human form again seemed odd. Gary became accustomed to their angelic form. "What are we going to do now?"

"We are going to rest," the Fairies said, "and you should eat. We leave you in the care of our handmaiden." They extended their tiny hands to a young woman who stepped into the clearing. She wore a colorful sarong, sandals, and a dagger strapped to her side. Her luxurious black hair reached down to her waist and was tied into a ponytail by crimson flowers. "Her name is Dayo."

Dayo smiled and bowed in greeting. She helped Gary walk from the pond to the village. His out of body experience left him unsteady on his feet.

"I think I'm all right now."

Dayo let him go and he swerved drunkenly into a palm tree.

Gary cursed.

"Are you all right?" The island girl asked.

"Everything's fine but my pride." Gary rubbed the abrasion on his shoulder.

"I fainted the first time the Fairies showed me their true faces," she said so he wouldn't feel embarrassed.

Gary expected he would be eating with the Chief and elders, since Dayo was the Twin Fairies' handmaiden. Instead, they gathered around a spit with the common folk. The huts were arranged in a circle around cooking spits so neighbors could share meals together. A cluster of palm trees provided shade and the aroma of the cooked food teased Gary's empty belly.

The islanders directed their conversation with Gary through Dayo, rarely speaking to him directly. They seemed wary of his presence.

Dayo did a splendid job setting them at ease. "We hope you stay with us for a long time," they said as they returned to their work.

"My people fear outsiders," Dayo explained. She took Gary for another walk to help him clear his head. They climbed a path into the foothills. "The outside world used our island as a test site for their nuclear weapons. Many of us died in the blasts. Even more became sick. We used to have to mix a special drink to build our immunity to the radiation, but Mothra and the Fairies restored the island's health. The trees and animals flourished again and we no longer become sick."

"You don't mind outsiders," Gary observed.

"I know not all outsiders are evil." Dayo enthusiastically recalled her adventures with Ryota and Yata Kane, Japanese brothers who were Gary's age, their friends Nita, Ichino, and a bank robber named Yoshimura. "They helped free my people from the Red Bamboo. The Fairies told me you are as brave and decent as they are." She smiled fondly at him and grasped his hand as they walked.

The girl in the bar back in Detroit, Stacy, flashed in Gary's mind. He recalled her smile, her signal of interest. This time Gary didn't compare Dayo with Lilla as he did with Stacy. Lilla was still prettier, but Dayo was human, like him, and that made her more appealing, although Stacy was more in his league, a city girl tainted by city-life, than an innocent islander. What was Dayo responding to? Was she attracted to him or his reputation as a hero?

They reached the summit of the hill. The view of the ocean stretched to the horizon.

"Which way is your homeland?" Dayo asked.

Gary pointed toward the northeast.

She shielded her eyes from the sun and searched the northeast horizon as though she were trying to visualize the North American continent. "I want to live in the outside world. Someday I will find a way there."

"Trust me. You won't like it. Where I come from it's noisy and hectic. It's all about 'rugged individualism' and 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' and 'sink or swim'. There isn't as much community spirit as you have here."

Dayo laughed. "Don't be deceived. It's hard for me to fit in. My people remember outsiders by how the Red Bamboo enslaved them. I remember outsiders by Ryota and his friends. My people forget our ancestors migrated to this island. We descended from outsiders. So why should I stay on this island just because I was born here?"

"I can't argue," Gary smiled.

"Good. Don't." Dayo took his hands into hers.

They returned to the village. Gary got to help out with the daily chores of the people. Participating in a tropical, Stone Age culture fascinated him. Instead of viewing this lifestyle in museum exhibits, he got to live it.

In the evening, the natives gathered at the campfires to eat and talk about how their day went. There was song and dance. They bid each other goodnight when they were done and returned to their huts.

Dayo took him to a hut prepared for him. Accruements included a bamboo table with an oil lamp and a shelf to fold and stack his clothes, and a bed lying on the floor made of reeds. She handed him a blanket from the clothes shelf and said goodnight.

Gary wished the Fairies told him he'd be spending the night on Infant Island. He would've brought more clothes. Only a curtain covered the doorway. He stretched it out to make certain no one could see through the cracks, quickly stripped down to his underwear and covered himself with the blanket. He laid down on the mat and tried to sleep, but all he could think about was how self-conscious he felt lying in his briefs, in a one-room building without a proper door and lock, not to mention lying on a bed smelling of dried vegetable matter.

Dayo returned with a second blanket. "Our huts don't have central heating like your houses and our island gets cold at night." She spread the second blanket over him. "Much better?" she asked.

"I could use a door."

Dayo regarded the curtain covering the entrance then turned back to Gary with a smile. "Are you worried about your privacy? I will watch the entrance so no one will peek at you."

"You're going to guard my door? Don't you need your sleep?"

"I will be fine." Dayo left the hut and sat by the entrance with her hand on the hilt of her dagger.

Gary was touched by her diligence. It seemed he now had a female bodyguard. He found himself becoming fond of her.

#

At sundown Dango's gang, eighteen men manning three speed boats, cruised toward the ocean liner carrying the mysterious embryo. They cut their motors within hearing distance and let their boats' momentum close the distance.

Dango double checked Shindo's bonds. "You know the drill?"

"Make one false move and your friend shoots." The Japanese spy nodded toward the guard.

"Good man." Dango patted Shindo's cheek with a calloused hand.

Dango and his men climbed aboard and crept into the ship. Screams and gunfire erupted. Discharging weapons flashed from the portholes. Dango turned the ocean liner into a coffin. He fetched Shindo and brought him aboard. They trekked through corpse-strewn corridors to the ship's hold. His men already had Dr. Bowen and his two assistants, Dr. Sueko and Dr. Kawaji, at gun point.

In the center of the hold was a steel, egg-shaped container. It was bolted to the floor.

Dr. Bowen recognized Shindo when he arrived in the hold. Bowen made eye contact, but kept silent lest he get backhanded for speaking out of turn.

Dango held out a vial for Dr. Bowen. "This contains a phosphorous solution. Administer it to your embryo."

Dr. Bowen shook his head. "One thing I didn't clarify at the lecture is how swiftly Tryga is growing. Take a look." The doctor keyed in the combination to the electronic locks and slid back the top of the steel container. A putrid odor spewed into the room and the pirates winced in revulsion at what wallowed inside the container.

The embryo had grown to the size of a newborn infant. Its body was a brown, pulsating glob of flesh with slithering tentacles. A face rolled out from under the folds of skin and clenched its jaws and pinched its eyes closed as if it were in pain.

Dango took a broom set in the corner and poked the creature with the handle.

A pair of hands shot out from the tentacles and grabbed the wooden rod. Dango struggled to pull away, but the fetal beast pulled him forward, swiftly grabbing the shaft with its rubbery little hands, pulling the Indonesian pirate closer and closer. A hungry, whistling squeal peeled from its open mouth.

Finally, Dango mustered his strength and yanked the broom free.

The embryo grasped the air and pierced everyone's ears with a fluting wail.

Dr. Bowen looked upon his specimen with disgust. "Yesterday, this creature was no larger than my fist. Tryga is a Pandora's Box. We opened it," he nodded to his assistants, "and we're taking it to Berkeley to shut the lid before it's too late."

"It doesn't look much like a stingray," Shindo said.

"It's more accurate to say that it had a common ancestor with the stingray," Bowen clarified. "At some point Tryga's ancestors branched off from the ray lineage and evolved like a bad seed. We identify her as a stingray only because we don't have a name for her species."

"Enough talk." Dango thrust the vial at Bowen. "Get to work."

Bowen looked him in the eye and said softly and with finality, "no."

Dango drew his gun and shot Dr. Kawaji in the leg, right above the knee. Sueko screamed as Kawaji collapsed onto the floor. The Japanese scientist clutched his wound. Blood drained unchecked through his fingers.

"He'll bleed to death!" Shindo shouted. "Let me help."

Dango ignored him and spun back toward Bowen. Bowen punched him across the jaw. The pirate's head snapped back, but he didn't fall. He grabbed the American doctor by the collar, slammed him against the bulkhead and systematically tenderized his ribs and stomach with hard fists until he took the fight out of Bowen. Dango showed no anger, merely the resolve of a professional at work. He pulled the ragged scientist back onto his feet and steadied him.

"I won't kill you, any of you," Dango said. "But I will give plenty of warnings." He pointed to Kawaji's wound. "That's the first one."

Arguing would be useless. Bowen obeyed. While he administered the phosphorous-enriched solution, Dango's pirates piled bullet-riddled bodies around the container and tied Shindo and Bowen's colleagues to chairs. Once Tryga showed signs of growth, Dango ordered his men to tie up Bowen and head back to their boats.

Before he left, he squeezed Shindo's shoulder. "Maybe this will comfort you. You're not here because you know too much of the Red Bamboo's operation. Your investigation barely scratched the surface. No, my friend," he patted Shindo, "you're here because of the woman. You can go to your grave knowing you're more of a man than the commander. I just hope for your sake Satin left you sweet memories because if it were me," Dango leered, "I hate to leave this mortal coil with just one dance and a handshake."

Dango's laughter echoed in the corridor as he left the hold.

"Dirty, stinking rat," Bowen muttered under his breath.

Shindo squeezed his cuff link, releasing a hooked blade. He went to work clawing the rope with the hook. "Don't worry," he said to the three scientists. "We're getting out of here."

The embryo outgrew its basin inside the container, wriggled over the edge, and flopped onto the bodies. Immediately, it chomped and slurped on the human feast.

"Ugh!" Sueko turned her head.

"Hurry," Bowen urged Shindo.

Tryga reached the infant stage. Her head and torso merged as her body took on the form of a stingray, although she retained her limbs. She flicked out a barb from the end of her tail like a stiletto, whipped it side to side in satisfaction—her new weapon. She sheathed it and resumed feeding.

"Not just because of the monster," Bowen added. "My friend's in a bad way."

The pirates left Kawaji's wound unattended. Blood flowed freely.

"I'm hurrying," Shindo clenched his teeth, driving the blade deeper into the tough fibers.

An explosion shook the ship.

"The pirates blew the hull!" Bowen said. "They want to make certain the monster reaches the sea."

The sound of rushing water reached their ears. The ship lurched to the side and the bulkheads wheezed from the pressure.

"We are going to die in one of two ways," Kawaji gasped. Sweat dribbled down his blood-drained face. "Either Tryga eats us, or we drown and then Tryga will eat us."

 **Chapter 5**

Gary was in a dead sleep when Mothra's alarmed cries shook the entire village awake.

"What's going on?" Gary rubbed his tired eyes.

Dayo leapt to her feet. "I'll find out."

"I'll catch you up!" Gary threw on his clothes and joined the Infant Islanders' rush to the beach. A ship lurched in the moonlit sea like a sick animal. Mothra circled the ailing vessel bleating angrily as though she had cornered a snake in its hole.

The Twin Fairies translated Mothra's speech. "There is a monster inside the ship."

"Looks like it's sinking," Gary said.

"It is," the Fairies confirmed. "And there are people onboard."

"We won't be able to reach the ship in time with canoes," Dayo said.

"We will with my boat. May I borrow this?" Gary took a torch from one of the natives and ran to his uncle's cabin cruiser in the lagoon. He wasn't surprised to find Dayo climbing aboard right behind him and neither did he waste time dissuading her from coming along because she was a woman.

Gary started up the cruiser and sailed out to the ocean liner.

Inside the liner, Shindo cut the ropes around his wrists and untied the bonds around his ankles.

Tryga shrieked at Shindo. Gore dripped from her jaws. The monster was now as large as an adult human. The hideous stingray lunged at him.

Shindo blocked her with the chair.

Tryga grabbed the chair, tackled it, and chomped it into kindling. The monster's rapid growth drove her insane with hunger.

Shindo cut Sueko's bindings next. The water continued pouring in from the corridor, swirling through the hold.

Tryga finished the chair and turned her feral gaze on the live meat.

Bowen whistled at Tryga as though he were calling a dog. "Over here! Take a bite out of me. Come on, you ugly carp!"

Tryga warily looked from Bowen to the other human prey which was now loose.

Up on the deck, Gary and Dayo searched for survivors.

"Hello!" Gary shouted. "Can anyone hear me?"

There was no answer but the monstrous gurgling of water rushing into the stricken ship.

"There might not be any survivors," Dayo said. "All we've found are dead bodies."

"They must be in the lower decks. Let's go!"

Down in the hold, Shindo held Kawaji's head above water while Sueko untied the ropes binding Bowen's wrists.

Tryga circled them like a shark. The water was deep enough for her to fully immerse herself. The monster's colors turned from a sickly brown to a bold black with vibrant yellow markings, like that of a scorpion.

"My hands are free!" Bowen yelled. "I'll take care of my ankles, Sueko. Distract our hungry pet. Quick!"

Cringing, Sueko shoved half-eaten, floating corpses toward Tryga. The monster grabbed them, feeding lustily.

The flood lifted them off their feet, rising swifter and swifter.

"I'll only weigh you down," Kawaji moaned. "You should leave me."

"We should, but we won't," Bowen said, taking up the burden of carrying Kawaji. "OK, everybody, let's get outta here!"

They took one last gulp of air and dove under the water and swam against the current flowing through the corridor.

Tryga pursued only to be stopped short by the doorway. Her body had grown too big to fit through. She circled the hold, furious over the loss of healthy prey.

Shindo led the way, swimming up through the decks until they reached the surface of the rising water. Blessed air at last! He and his companions drank it in, their chests rising and falling.

The water was knee-deep on this level, but it wouldn't remain shallow for long.

"Which way to the top deck?" Shindo asked.

The scientists weren't sure. "We haven't been to this part of the ship."

"Th-this boat is ah…a maze," Kawaji gasped. "We'll…we'll never escape in time."

Shindo rolled his eyes. Just when he thought they were almost out of here.

"Listen!" Sueko put her hand to her ear. "I hear voices."

Around the bend a voice yelled, "Is anyone still in here! Hello!"

Shindo exclaimed, "You're right. I hear voices, too. Hey!" he yelled. Bowen and Sueko joined him in yelling for help.

"Hear that?" Gary stopped Dayo. "I knew they had to be close!"

The two parties sloshed toward each other.

"Oh my God!" Gary cried in surprise. "Shindo! What are you doing here?"

"I'll tell you later. Can you get us out of here?"

Gary became excited being reunited with the Japanese spy. He pointed back down the direction he and Dayo had come, eager to show Shindo he had everything under control. "No sweat! We're just one level down from the main deck. I'll get you out of here in a minute."

Then the ocean liner took in all the water it could handle. Its bow sank and its stern jutted up into the air. Water dripped from the exposed screws and poured down the hull. Mothra swooped in and grabbed the ship as the natives on the shore cried out in horror. She flapped furiously. Drawing the ship out of the ocean's suction was like pulling a tooth. She held the vessel above the ocean so the water could pour out the hole Dango had dynamited in its side.

In the corridor, Shindo and Gary and their friends lay soaked and coughing on the wet floor.

Mothra's cry echoed outside. She sounded strained.

"Mothra rescued us," Dayo said.

Shindo hoisted Kawaji onto his shoulder and pulled Gary up with his free hand. "Lead the way!"

They limped onto the deck and climbed down to Gary's boat. No sooner Gary revved the motor, Tryga burst through the superstructure of the ship. She was as big as a house. She sank her teeth into Mothra's thorax. Mothra's grip on the liner slipped. The ship's bow plunged into the sea. The waves it stirred up heaved the cabin cruiser up and down.

Gary peeled away toward the safety of the lagoon.

Mothra dropped the liner and tried to pry off the voracious stingray.

Tryga let go and dropped into water. She decided that she did not need to devour this giant insect. The entire ocean was open to her now.

#

The whole gang got some well-needed rest. Mothra performed the same healing miracle restoring Kawaji's health as she did with Gary when he had been shot. Shindo contacted his chief Goro Yamashita and reported the results of his investigation, using the radio in Gary's boat.

"Dango's only a cog in the Red Bamboo's machine," Yamashita concluded when he heard the details. "You're right. The situation is worse than what we had anticipated."

"I'll ask Gary to sail me to the nearest island with an airport and fly back to Tokyo from there. It'll be faster than sending a ship to Infant Island."

"Agreed."

Shindo signed off and asked Gary, "You have any maps?"

"Only of the Great Lakes," Gary shrugged.

"That would figure."

"We have maps," Dayo said. "Learned men from your country, an-thro-pologists," she pronounced slowly and carefully, "left a few of their things behind, including maps. I'll fetch them."

She returned shortly with a bundle of charts and spread them out on the table of the boat's galley. The closest port of call was the Fiji Islands.

"Will you take me there?" Shindo asked Gary, putting his finger on the destination. "I need to report to my superiors."

"What's your mission all about?" Gary asked.

"I'll tell you if you take me."

"I call that a deal!" Gary shook Shindo's hand, excited to tag along in espionage work.

"Keep in mind," Shindo said, "I don't expect you to share the risks. I just need transportation."

"You can count on me. I'm not scared," Gary bragged. "Remember, I got shot and resurrected. This is my second life."

Shindo grinned. "You only live twice, Mr. Culmin."

Bowen, Sueko, and Kawaji elected to stay behind. "The Fairies granted us permission to study Mothra's healing capabilities," Bowen said. "After the disastrous results of our experiments with Tryga, we see this as an opportunity to redeem ourselves."

Shindo promised to send transport once he reached Fiji.

The Twin Fairies came out to the Lagoon to bid the young adventurers a safe journey.

"When I came here," Gary said to them, "I was depressed and frustrated. Now I feel I got my head screwed on straight and I have you to thank for it. I wish I can kiss you before I go, but you're too small."

"Then we shall kiss you." The Fairies stood up on the tree branch they had been sitting on and motioned Gary to come forward.

Emotion welled inside him. He didn't think he still felt something for Lilla, but he still did. Receiving affection from her meant a lot. He gently leaned his cheek toward them and they each kissed him, Lilla first, then Arana.

The Infant Islanders kindly packed the cabin cruiser with food and blankets for the trip. Shindo was surprised to see Dayo still on board after her fellow countrymen vacated the boat.

"We probably won't be back," Shindo warned her.

"You can't leave without me, I am his partner." She linked her arm with Gary's.

Gary was nonplussed. "Partners? We've known each other for only one night."

Shindo assessed the dynamic between these two, smiled, and said to Gary, "Sometimes one night is all it takes."

#

Ebirah, his lobster brain still giddy with victory, decided to ambush Godzilla two more times. One more victory would make them tied from the two fights Ebirah had lost at Letchi Island and another would put him ahead.

He listened to the whale songs for information. Whales gossiped on the affairs of other animals. According to them, Godzilla was hunting him. It would be best to wait until the mutated dinosaur calmed down and lowered his guard—then attack.

Ebirah foraged for food on the ocean floor to keep his strength up for the next fight. He discovered an alarming number of sunken ships among the detritus. The human contraptions looked as though they had been squeezed by a Kraken and chewed on by a shark. So what sort of creature mauled these boats, a giant squid or fish?

As Ebirah puzzled this over, an enormous beast passed over him at lightning speed. His antennas sprung up, fully alert. He scanned the waters for a scent. Whatever it was, it was long gone.

Ebirah became anxious. No animal should be able to swim that fast. None.

#

Godzilla expanded his search for Ebirah into the Coral Sea, ignoring the pleas of his empty stomach to get something to eat. He interrogated the migrating whales with throaty grunts and head gestures for Ebirah's whereabouts.

They told him they took no interest in the affairs of bottom feeders. They were skimming plankton from the ocean waves for food.

So scum suckers are too proud to pay attention to bottom feeders, Godzilla thought indignantly. He flashed his fins, threatening to attack them if they did not give him an answer.

They wailed mournfully. _Who will care for our young if you slaughter us?_

Godzilla bared his teeth, warning them not to try his patience. Their calves would make good eating and his belly was as empty as a pit.

The whale herd fled, their flukes pumping hard to pick up speed.

Godzilla let them go. The only thing keeping him going was his wrath. He didn't have the strength for much else. Find Ebirah first; deal with the whales later.

Anyway, talking to the herds would only spread the word on his location, information which needed to be kept secret from his quarry.

Godzilla swam to a deserted island. He could deny his belly food, but he couldn't deny his lungs fresh air.

As he lumbered onto the beach, a powerful wave splashed into him. Godzilla recognized all types of waves from tides to tsunamis. That wave was part of a wake. Judging by the size and force, a very large animal had just skirted passed him.

Godzilla didn't like it when someone buzzed his heels. Megalodons pulled such stunts, trying to take a bite out of him like a hit and run thief. Humans believed the megalodons, a species of giant sharks, died out ages ago. They were wrong. The megalodons were still out there, and Godzilla knew where to find them.

However, the wake was not caused by a giant shark. Godzilla knew because the shark would have to be as big as he was and the megalodons were not that big. Also, the water was too shallow. The shark would have to be flat, like a disk, to get this close. This meant one thing:

Something new had entered the sea.

Godzilla scanned the sun-dappled waters, finding nothing but a freighter out on the horizon.

The ship slid across the waves, silent, serene in its course. In an instant a beast burst out of the water, grabbing the ship. Steel crunched like a baby seal squealing for help. In the next instant, the beast disappeared with its metal prey. The ship's cargo containers bobbed on the turbulent, foaming water.

Godzilla couldn't make out what kind of creature it was other than it was black with yellow markings.

#

The following day was as distressing for Ebirah as the last. All the other sea creatures behaved skittishly which put the kaiju lobster even more on edge. He scuttled across the ocean bottom, seeking shelter. The world was being unfair. It throws a mysterious monster into the sea to terrorize him no sooner than he got his self-respect back.

Along the way he found whale body parts—flukes, fins, and heads—strewn across the silt like scraps on a butcher's table. There were enough parts to piece together an entire herd.

Ebirah picked up a head. He recognized the face. These were the whales who talked about Godzilla. Did Godzilla kill them for giving his location away?

No. The tooth marks belonged to a fish.

Ebirah shuttered in his shell. Except for their flavor, he hated fish. Mindless eating machines, especially the megalodons. So, the mysterious monster must be a fish. Ebirah nibbled on the whale remains—mindlessly—while he fretted.

The predator would have to be big. Bigger than him? Possibly…probably. Yes, it must be, he decided. And its teeth could crack lobster shells as easily as he could crack the whale skulls with his claws.

He relaxed when he finished feasting on the succulent whale scraps. A full gullet had a way of fortifying one's courage.

But once Ebirah was content, a sunken ship dropped into view from above and settled on the ocean floor before him. The stricken vessel showed signs of being crushed and chewed.

Ebirah's antennas tensed like rabbit ears listening for a hawk.

A disk-shaped silhouette with a whiplash tail darted through the ocean like a black meteor.

Ebirah scaled to higher ground and got a better look at it.

A stingray!

A fellow bottom feeder. Ebirah's familiarity with rays dispelled his fears. He resumed foraging, choosing to live and let live.

The ray, however, veered around. Its outstretched pectoral fins rippled as it dove toward Ebirah like a jet commencing a bombing run. Tentacles uncoiled from the creature's underside. This wasn't an ordinary ray. It was Tryga, and she didn't live and let live.

She bashed into Ebirah, ensnaring the giant crustacean with her tentacles. Ebirah thrashed to free himself. A cloud burst of silt enveloped the two undersea titans. Ebirah's limbs felt ready to snap. If he didn't act fast, Tryga would render him legless, helpless, easy prey for the savage ray. Out of desperation he stabbed Tryga's exposed underbelly with the forward spur of his shell.

Tryga shoved him away, tucked in her tentacles, and swam out of the billowing silt cloud.

From what Ebirah could tell, the ray was incensed over territory. He used the turned up silt as a smoke screen to cover his escape and fled, but Tryga dogged him no matter where he went, even when he returned to his old stomping grounds around Letchi Island. Tryga behaved as though the entire ocean belonged to her.

Fed up, Ebirah stood his ground. He would not allow the ray to push him out of his own territory. They tore into each other like Siamese fighting fish. But Tryga proved to be too fast, too strong, and too vicious.

Ebirah backed out of the sea, onto the barren island to get a break. He felt like a battered old war wagon. His joints creaked. His gills rasped. Dry land was a harsh place. At least here Tryga shouldn't be able to reach him.

Shouldn't…

His tormentor crawled up the shore. She had arms and hands. How many limbs did this beast have? Tryga wasn't a stingray, it was a nightmare!

Ebirah snapped his claws in warning and cried out in a shrill whistle to frighten the monster stingray away.

Tryga gulped a mouthful of water and spewed it at such a high velocity it bored deep grooves into Ebirah's carapace and when the stream struck him in the face it slashed like a hot knife, drawing blood.

Ebirah backed further inland, shielding his face with his claws. Tryga turned his refuge into a death trap. The giant lobster would suffocate if he didn't return to the water.

Tryga dove back into the sea and swam toward a cruise ship which had the misfortune of sailing into the monsters' battlefield.

Ebirah had never encountered an animal as territorial as Tryga. He needed help from someone with a range weapon to keep Tryga busy so he could get close enough to use his claws, but the only animal he knew with a range weapon was Godzilla and Godzilla hated him.

If only he had not been so hell bent on revenge. Ebirah might've been able to rally Godzilla to his side. What hope did he have now?

 **Chapter 6**

Gary brought Shindo and Dayo to the Fiji Islands without incident. Shindo reserved two suites at the Sheraton resort, and gave spending money to Gary and Dayo so they could have some fun while he booked a flight back to Tokyo.

"What do you think?" Dayo asked as she admired her new clothes in the mirror. She spent her share on a blouse and a couple dresses.

"You look very modern," Gary said.

"Thank you!" Dayo flushed with excitement, happy to finally shed her stone-age culture.

Gary preferred her hand-woven sarong. The new clothes took the charm out of her exotic island beauty; in fact she resembled Sueko. Cut her hair and she might even pass for Sueko.

Shindo returned from the airport with bad news. "All flights have been cancelled."

"What?" Gary shot up in his seat.

"Tryga has grown to kaiju size and has been terrorizing the shipping lanes," Shindo said. "She has yet to attack an aircraft, but that doesn't mean she isn't capable. Out of precaution, the Pacific Rim nations grounded all traffic to a halt."

"An entire ocean," Gary murmured.

"No ships, no planes, nothing," Shindo reiterated. "We're stuck here." He threw aside the curtains and put his fists to his hips. He felt like an eagle with clipped wings.

The sight of the ocean front view eventually thawed his frustration. "Still, we can't ask for a better place to be stranded. Have either of you been to Fiji before?"

Gary and Dayo said no.

Shindo turned from the window with a broad smile. "Come along, kids. Let me show you the sights."

They toured the splendors of the Fiji Islands and wound down the afternoon strolling on the marina. Shindo stopped his two companions and pointed to a sub down at the docks.

"We're in luck! That's the _Explorer_. Carl Nelson must be around."

"Who?" Gary asked.

"Commander Carl Nelson," Shindo explained, "captain of the United Nations submarine _Explorer_. We're old friends. I'll introduce you when we find him."

They found the UN sea captain lounging at a table outside a café, sipping a Tom Collins.

"Shindo Yamaguchi! Talk about the proverbial bad penny," Carl got up and vigorously shook the secret service agent's hand.

"Carl, meet my friends, Gary Culmin from Detroit and Dayo from Infant Island."

"From Motor City and the Isle of Peace," Carl mused, "your sidekicks get more eclectic all the time."

"I was afraid you'd say more motley," Shindo grinned.

"No one is motlier than you," Carl teased. He gave Gary a hearty handshake. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Culmin." He bowed to Dayo. "Welcome to Fiji, Dayo."

"You can shake my hand, if that's the custom here." Dayo offered her palm.

"Actually the custom is to kiss a lady's hand." Carl graciously did so to Gary's chagrin.

Dayo blushed demurely.

"Why don't you two grab a bite to eat at the bar while I make travel arrangements?" Shindo slapped a twenty in Gary's hand.

"And get me another Tom Collins." Carl pulled out his wallet. "You want anything Shindo?"

"I'm good."

"Get yourselves something to, if you like, on me," Carl handed Gary another ten.

Gary and Dayo left to get some munchies and Carl's drink.

Once they were out of earshot, Carl asked, "What travel arrangements?"

"I need a ride back to Tokyo."

"You think I run a taxi service?"

"No, that's why I'm calling in a favor."

"Sounds serious." Carl motioned to an empty chair. "Take a seat and fill me in."

They sat at Carl's table. Shindo briefed him on his investigation.

Carl mulled over what Shindo said. "Tryga is derailing trade across the Pacific. The ripple effect will turn the global economy into a train wreck. That can't be the Red Bamboo's goal. They need a functioning economy as much as anyone else."

"Exactly. Tryga is the first stage of their plans." Shindo rubbed his chin. He frowned when an ugly thought came to mind. "What if their goal is not to destroy the global economy, but to control it?"

#

Godzilla returned to Letchi Island.

Letchi Island—isle of black sand, dense jungle, deep caves, and buried memories. The flora recovered remarkably after the Red Bamboo's reactor exploded, enveloping the island in fire and smoke.

Ebirah was no where in sight, but his tracks led up the shore and scuttled from one end of the island to the other. There were no other tracks, so he wasn't on the hunt.

Ebirah must have been on the run.

From what?

Whatever it was, it was still here. The island had that hush one not only heard but felt tingling in the air.

Godzilla searched the groves, the hills and valleys. He checked his back. He glanced to his left and then his right.

So far nothing.

But when he reached the end of Ebirah's trail on the island's far shore, Tryga broke the surface ululating in a piercing scream. She lifted herself up on her sinewy arms. Her tentacles spilled out from her underbelly and writhed in the shallow water.

Her display of gaping teeth and wormy limbs didn't impress Godzilla. Her piercing scream did make him wince in irritation. He recognized the yellow markings on the black skin. This was the creature that tried to nip his heels on the island in the Coral Sea. Godzilla threatened Tryga with a deep-throated snarl.

Tryga ululated. _Stay back! The sea is mine!_

Godzilla growled, _The sea is too vast for one animal to claim as its own_.

 _The sea is one piece_ , Tryga countered. _Therefore only one can claim it. I am the one!_ Tryga dipped her head into the sea, gulped the water and spewed it at Godzilla.

The hyper-velocity streamed burned like a hot knife. Godzilla reeled back from the shore. Purplish welts blistered all over Godzilla's gray-green hide. They were tender to the touch.

Tryga gulped a second mouthful and hosed Godzilla.

Godzilla scrambled out of Tryga's range. Consequently, Tryga was also out of range for his radioactive ray. He needed help—someone to distract the feral stingray—so he could close in.

Tryga's yellow and black markings reddened into a deep purple from exposure to the air. She submerged back into ocean with a thunderous splash.

Godzilla returned to the shore, getting ready to blast the stingray the instant she broke the surface.

The wait intensified as the waves tussled with each other.

Godzilla frowned, wondering if Tryga had gone away.

Then a tentacle whipped out of the sea, grabbed Godzilla's ankle, and pulled. Godzilla crashed onto the beach. A great cloud of volcanic sand burst into the air. Tryga dragged him halfway into the water and leapt on top of him and ensnared Godzilla in her tentacles. Godzilla blasted her dead in the face with his atomic ray. Tryga shrieked and dove back into the ocean.

Godzilla regained his breath and no sooner he got back up on his feet Tryga leapt on top of him again, ensnaring him with tentacles. This time she shoved Godzilla's head back with her hands so Godzilla couldn't fire his atomic ray.

Tryga leered at Godzilla's exposed throat and opened her jaws wide. Let's see how your blood tastes, land-dweller, she thought to herself

Suddenly she yelped.

Ebirah had grabbed Tryga's tail in his pincers.

Tryga's grip slackened.

Godzilla shook his head free and blasted the demented fish.

All three monsters disengaged. Ebirah and Godzilla eyed each other suspiciously; uncertain if one could trust the other's motives. Did they dare work together? If the fight ended with one of them mortally wounded, would the stronger kill the injured?

Tryga shrieked at both of them, unsheathing her tail barb. Her mind was clear. Trust and cooperation were never an option.

While the three kaiju sized each other up, a seemingly unrelated event unfolded on the Isle of Guam…

At the United States' naval computer and telecommunications station (NCTS), Faora performed her duties as Captain McKinley's secretary.

McKinley, nicknamed "Mac" by his friends, was in the autumn years of his life. The fire of his manhood waned. He needed the touch of a young woman, the kind he dated in his naval academy days.

Faora was the right medicine for what ailed him. Understanding, delightfully teasing, and most importantly she was compliant and supple when the lights were out. What he didn't know was that she was a mercenary.

Faora took advantage of the access she gained from her affair with the captain and arranged "employment" for Satin and Celeste.

She embraced Captain McKinley when he came into the office. "Good morning, Mac!" She kissed him.

"Ah," he sighed, squeezing her in a hug. "Did you enjoy your week off?" he asked as he got settled to begin the day's work.

"Very much so." Faora lingered at his desk.

"Where did you go?"

"Oh, Amsterdam for the big polo championship, then a party in Singapore."

McKinley frowned in surprise. "That's some heavy duty globe trotting, girl. Uncle Sam is paying you well, but not that well. Stow some of those pennies for retirement."

Faora smiled and picked up the photo of Mac's wife. "I can't help feeling she's watching us."

"I'm a family values man. But our time together has helped my marriage. My wife appreciates that I'm not grumpy like I used to be. I have more energy. I'm happier, which makes Gilda happy. For now this is not the time to impose judgment."

"Of course not." Faora put the picture down and smiled the smile of a cobra. She slinked to her desk and reached into her purse. "I can assure you she will never find out how much you've loved me."

"What's got into you?" McKinley looked at her strangely.

"Nothing." She spun around with an HK45 pistol. It was equipped with a silencer.

The handgun coughed once.

Captain McKinley's head jerked back. The contents of his skull splattered red all over the wall.

Faora pressed the communicator stud on her watch, signaling Satin and Celeste to go into action. They seized the base's control center, liquidating all personnel.

Satin contacted Commander Yamoto who was aboard the Red Bamboo flagship, _The Rapier_. The Red Bamboo's entire fleet was twenty miles east of Guam and closing.

"This is the Queen of Hearts," Satin's sultry voice spoke over the _Rapier's_ bridge intercom. "The hand has been played and the pot is ours. I repeat, the pot is ours."

"Congratulations," Yamoto spoke into his headset mike. "Are we ready for the next round?"

At the control center, Faora unpacked a special communicator from an army surplus rucksack. Called the kaiju neural stimulator, it was about the size of a World War 2 wireless set with a series of knobs and frequency indicators. Faora plugged it into the base's main transmitter and gave Satin thumbs up.

"Affirmative," Satin radioed to Yamoto.

"Good," Yamoto replied. "Deploy the Ace of Spades."

Faora aligned the massive communications dish outside the center and, via the neural stimulator, transmitted a signal that was calibrated to Tryga's brain patterns. Unknown to Dr. Bowen, the Red Bamboo had his work under surveillance. From his files they had obtained data on Tryga's genetic makeup. They knew which signals would "push Tryga's buttons" to either repel her or compel her to attack.

Tryga cocked her head as though she heard her name called and then dove into the Pacific, relieving Godzilla and Ebirah the quandary on whether this was going to be a three-way fight or a two-way.

The mutated dinosaur and giant lobster faced off, ready to resume their grudge match.

Their welts from Tryga's spit attack suggested something more was at stake than settling old scores. Obviously they each confronted Tyrga and lost. If they fought to the death now, the survivor would face Tryga alone and will undoubtedly be killed, too.

 _Well?_ Godzilla grunted.

Ebirah chirruped. _If we work together now we may never fight again and you won one more fight than me. I will always be second best._

 _And if we fight now I will win and you will be down by two fights again_ , Godzilla growled. _So where will that get you?_

 _Certain you can defeat me, are you?_ Ebirah struck an attack pose with his claws.

Godzilla's dorsal fins flashed. He roared, accepting Ebirah's challenge.

They nearly tore into each other with tooth and claw. The two monsters realized they needed to swallow their pride, the bitterest pill anyone could swallow.

Godzilla growled, _so what are you going to do?_

Ebirah considered their options, and chittered, _if Rodan can fight by your side, I suppose I can, too._

They forged their alliance and dove into the sea to end Tryga's reign of terror.

#

Alarms sounded throughout the Navy's telecommunications station on Guam as base security surrounded the control center. They ordered Satin and her gang to surrender over a blow horn. When the mercenaries failed to respond, the troops rushed the building and burst through the doors. Celeste led them on a merry chase through the corridors, drawing them into booby traps and ambushing them in the stairwells.

Satin held off the troops trying to storm the control room. Faora sipped coffee as she turned the knobs to the kaiju neural stimulator. They had set up a barricade of tables and desks with ammunition, coffee and doughnuts piled high inside their makeshift fortress.

As the bullets ricocheted overhead, Satin snapped her fingers to get Faora's attention and held out her hand.

Faora assumed she needed ammunition and slapped a fresh magazine for her MP5 machine pistol into Satin's palm.

"No," Satin dropped the ammo, "gimme a cream-filled."

"Oh! Sorry. Chocolate or custard?"

"Chocolate."

Faora handed Satin a chocolate cream-filled doughnut. Such was their nonchalance. They were in their early thirties while most of the Marines trying to kill them were in their late teens. It was like fighting kids. But Satin and Faora had no sympathy. Once you put on a uniform and took up a gun, that's it, you were fair game.

Tryga sped toward Guam under Faora's direction, leaving a steamy-hot trail of bubbles in her wake. The giant stingray could suck water into her mouth and expel it from an orifice in her backside. Tryga's suction functioned like the turbo fan of a jet engine, which allowed the streamlined monster fish to achieve supersonic speeds underwater.

Admiral Cole, commander of all naval operations on Guam, was fuming. "How can NCTS be under terrorist attack?" he yelled into the phone. He was in touch with Colonel Lang, commander of base security at the telecommunications station. "Get Mac on the line," Cole barked. "He's dead? A bullet through the head? For cripes sakes! How did terrorists get on the island? Traffic has been shut down across the entire Pacific. Hold on, Colonel, I got another incoming."

"Incoming" was Cole's word for another call.

He punched a key on his phone. "This is Admiral Cole. Who is it?"

It was his chief of staff. "Admiral, a taskforce is approaching Guam. Their nationality is unknown. They won't respond to any of our signals."

"Good grief! What are their numbers and composition?"

"Thirty ships including fifteen frigates, five destroyers, four light carriers, a mix of transports and tankers, and a heavy cruiser."

Another call came in, this time from the commander of Anderson Air Force Base on the north side of the island.

"Admiral, I'm sure you received news of the incoming ships." the Anderson AFB commander handled the crisis as though it were a routine exercise. "My boys are warming up their birds on the runways as we speak. How do you want to handle this? Wait a minute." There was a pause over the phone line. "Something is coming out of the water…Oh, my God!"

"What is it?" Cole demanded.

In response he heard an ululating shriek in the background.

The AFB commander hollered, "Tryga's here!"

Tryga crawled onto the grounds of the Anderson Air Force Base, crushing airport hangars, and hosed the fighters and bombers lined up on the tarmac. The hyper-velocity stream of water scattered the planes like toys. Their ordnance detonated like a string of giant firecrackers. In one sweep, the United States Air Force's military might on Guam had been destroyed.

Tryga crawled back into the sea and swam down the coast and attacked the US naval facilities in Apra Harbor, grabbing ships with her tentacles, slashing their hulls with her tail barb, and blasting installations with her spit attack.

Commander Yamoto dispatched his fighters. They lifted off from the escort carriers and bombed the installations outside Tryga's reach up and down the entire Orote Peninsula. They flew on to the NCTS base on Mount Barrigada and strafed the Marines surrounding the control center, giving Satin and her two cohorts much needed support.

Tryga continued her attack until Commander Yamoto's forces arrived. With the Americans already badly mauled, his troops seized Guam with textbook ease. Marines and naval personnel holed up in their bomb shelters and the Red Bamboo smoked them out with white phosphorous grenades and napalm charges. The mop-up became an eerie case of what goes around comes around. During World War 2, the Americans had driven the Japanese into their shelters on Guam and flushed them out with flamethrowers. Now the same thing was happening to the Americans.

The Pentagon suppressed the news of the takeover and rallied the Naval and Marine units stationed on Saipan and Tinian. They had twenty-four hours to retake Guam. The top brass estimated that was about how long they had before word leaked to the public.

The Marines loaded up on their transports and the Navy immediately sailed down the Marianas archipelago toward Guam, running straight into Tryga. The sharks gorged themselves on human meat as Tryga gored the ships and ripped them apart. The Red Bamboo shot down incoming US jets with the American's own anti-aircraft missiles. When the smoke cleared, the United States was forced to acknowledge she lost control of Guam to the Red Bamboo.

The news shocked the world.

Commander Yamoto, the island's conqueror, met the governor on the steps of the governor's mansion in Hagatna, Guam's capitol city.

"Governor, I bring good news," Yamoto said with an imperious glint in his one good eye. "Your people are now liberated. Guam is no longer a territory of the United States, but a free nation. The Red Bamboo will assist you in securing recognition in the United Nations."

While they spoke the Stars and Stripes descended the flagpole.

"Thank you, Commander," the governor said guardedly. His bodyguards and staff flanked him on the steps.

Yamoto had his white-uniformed soldiers flanking him. The clash of clothes made it look like a meeting between business men and a military junta.

"What of the US naval and air force bases on the island?" the governor asked. "They contribute significantly to our economy and security. Who will manage them?"

"The Americans who surrendered will remain in detention until we can arrange for their repatriation," Yamoto said. "The facilities will be manned by our organization and managed by my new viceroy—Dango."

Dango stepped forward. His lips formed a razor-edged smile. His eyes glittered like black ice.

The governor, for the sake of protocol, shook the calloused hand. A chill coursed through him. "On behalf of my people, I thank you for making us your banana republic."

"Of course," Yamoto smiled taking the governor's sarcasm in stride. "We'll stay in touch. Come, Dango. Let me show you around your new empire."


	3. Chapter 3

**War of the Sea Monsters**

 **By Neil Riebe**

 **Part 3**

 **Chapter 7**

"Why is my country always getting attacked?" Gary griped. He, Dayo, and Shindo were watching the news at his hotel suite.

Gary clarified his statement, mindful of how often Shindo's nation had been ravaged by giant monsters. "Seems that way, lately. First Super Allosaurus and now Tryga."

"I have a feeling the attack on Guam wasn't incidental," Shindo said, "but orchestrated."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," Gary said.

Shindo put a sympathetic hand on the young man's shoulder.

Ever since Tryga came ashore on Guam, no solid news other than rumors was circulating from the Marianas, which made Shindo all the more anxious to report back to his chief. He was probably one of the few people who knew the extent of the Red Bamboo's involvement with Tryga's rampage.

Carl agreed to transport him to Tokyo, pending permission from the UN. He also offered to take Gary back to the US. His crew secured Gary's boat in the sub's hold. The _Explorer_ was a large submarine. Carl radioed a message to his superiors.

Everyone boarded the sub, ready to go. All they needed was the OK from the United Nations.

"Commander!" Lieutenant Commander Jiro Nomura, Carl Nelson's first mate, reported from the radio operator's seat. "We received word from HQ."

"And?" Carl spoke with anticipation for an affirmative.

"It's a no go. While Tryga is at large, the Pacific waters are deemed too hazardous for travel."

Shindo banged the bulkhead with his fist.

Jiro handed Carl a message. "Also, the Red Bamboo issued a statement to the United Nations."

Carl read the message, scowled, and passed it to Shindo.

"This is rich," Shindo said. He read the message aloud: "'The Red Bamboo wishes to extend its condolences to the families who lost loved ones in the recent tragedies on the high seas and salute the brave soldiers who perished on Guam. We are presently working in cooperation with the local government to provide humanitarian aid to the stricken island. Let us assure you we are not responsible for the creation of the monster Tryga. We recommend you review the work of the American scientist, Dr. Bowen, and his two Japanese associates if you wish to prosecute a responsible party.'" Shindo stopped reading. "I love how the Red Bamboo pinned the blame on poor Bowen and his friends."

He continued reading, "'Let us be clear, our organization did not conquer Guam. We rescued it from Tryga. We possess the means to repel the monster and are prepared to do our part to make the Pacific safe for civilian traffic once again, however, we will not be able to repel Tryga indefinitely without the Pacific Rim nations sharing in the costs.'" Shindo got a good laugh at that. "Let's see how much of a contribution they want!"

Shindo scanned the message for the amount and frowned. "Huh. That's not much. For each ton of cargo which crosses the Pacific they want $100, whether it be by air or sea."

"Take that amount times the volume of goods which crosses the ocean each day and you will run an annual income in the billions," Carl said, "and as the global economy grows that will run into trillions of dollars each year. The Red Bamboo is not stupid. They're not going to strangle the Golden Goose. They'll keep their fees modest so it's still cost effective to use the Pacific rather than an alternate route."

"You realize what will happen," Shindo handed back the message. "The Red Bamboo will rival nations in financial strength. Wars are won in the pocketbook, not the battlefield. The Red Bamboo will become the most powerful force on Earth."

Dayo thought of a solution. "If money is where the Red Bamboo is getting their power, then get rid of money. We don't use money on Infant Island and we get along fine."

"It's not that simple," Carl said. "Civilization will have to re-invent itself overnight."

"It's either money or freedom! The choice is obvious, isn't it?"

"Good luck telling that to Wall Street," Carl grinned sardonically.

"Or the G8 nations," Shindo added.

"Or the International Monetary Fund," Carl rejoined.

The list went on and on.

Dayo looked dismayed.

"Welcome to the outside world," Gary put his arm around her shoulders. His words had an "I told you so" tone.

Events spiraled out of control. China, Australia, Japan, the United States, every nation which depended upon the Pacific for trade mustered their fleets to destroy Tryga, but once the Red Bamboo revealed they could ward off the beast, the objective switched to retaking Guam. The Pacific Rim nations assumed correctly that the means to repel Tryga would be located there, and since the Red Bamboo were terrorists, no one needed to parlay with them. They could take what they want from the Red Bamboo by force.

The greatest combined fleet in history set sail for Guam.

Back at the Fiji Islands, Shindo and Carl went to a bar to drown their frustrations in alcohol while Gary and Dayo took turns at the pinball machine.

"What if you disobeyed orders?" Shindo asked Carl. "Not that I'm saying you should," he assured his friend. "Let's suppose for conversation sake what the consequences would be."

"I've been pondering the same thing." Carl stared into his beer. "I'd be deep-sixing my career and at the very least I'd be kissing my pension goodbye."

"I'm not trying to talk you into anything that'll get you into trouble. I'm just saying I'd probably get myself in trouble if I were in your shoes. Lord knows I've gotten myself in enough trouble in my own shoes." Shindo ordered another beer. His head felt like it was filled with more bubbly foam than his mug. The amber light of the bar blurred into a lurid haze.

"Commander!" Jiro, Carl's first mate, rushed up to the bar. "Another message from the UN. We're at war!"

Carl grabbed the message from his first mate and read it. "The navies of every nation on the Pacific Rim are converging on Guam," he told Shindo.

Shindo snapped out of his buzz. "What?"

"They believe the Red Bamboo is keeping some sort of device which can control Tryga on the island."

"If they realize that, then they should also realize the Red Bamboo will use Tryga against them."

"That's why each nation is deploying its entire navy. They hope to overwhelm the Red Bamboo with numbers."

"Those sailors will be dying by the tens of thousands," Shindo said. "We must liberate Guam first and get our hands on Tryga's control device."

"How?" Carl threw his hand up in desperation. "I haven't the men."

"We won't need them," Shindo countered. "There's at least a thousand US Marines stationed there."

"Under lock and key," Carl added.

"And they will be itching for payback. Just get me and my partner close to the shore and we'll do the rest."

"Your partner?"

Shindo pulled Gary away from the pinball machine. "My partner," Shindo reiterated.

"Me?" Gary asked, incredulous.

"We must not forget the troubles of others," Dayo said.

"I-I'm a civilian," Gary stuttered.

Shindo sighed and patted the boy's arm, letting him off the hook. "That you are."

Gary sensed the disappointment thickening the air. He did hop aboard a sinking ship in search of survivors. Why stop being brave now?

"All right, I'm in!"

Dayo's eyes lit up with pride.

Shindo swiveled around in his seat looking up at the young man in pleasant surprise.

"It's a mute point," Jiro interjected. "HQ won't give us permission to leave port until Tryga has been neutralized."

"Do you still have a copy of our orders?" Carl asked Jiro.

"Right here, Sir." Jiro took the orders from his breast pocket and handed them to Carl.

Carl tore the orders into shreds. "We're going."

Gary grabbed his beer from the pinball machine and held it up in a toast. "We're going and we're going to win. To victory!"

Shindo grabbed his and Carl retrieved his. Dayo grabbed one of Shindo's empties so she could be part of the group. They banged their mugs together and said with one voice, "To victory!"

#

Despite the swiftness in which the Pacific Rim nations deployed their navies, getting from their ports, assemble into a cohesive fighting force and then reach their objective would take the combined fleet over a week to accomplish. Nothing was more sluggish than maneuvering ships over 64 million square miles of ocean, which gave people's fears time to build. On the home front, investors withdrew their wealth from stocks now that trade grounded to a halt across the Pacific. Businessmen dropped workers from their payrolls to preserve the bottom line.

The few days in which trade ceased across the Pacific had the effect of a cardiac arrest. An editorial cartoon depicted the global economy as a China shop and Tryga as the bull smashing everything on the shelves, including the shelves.

So far the population suggested countering the Red Bamboo's extortion by developing local economies and neighbor helping neighbor which left governments seeing red—as in Socialism.

Campaign contributors kicked elected officials out in front of the TV cameras to plead, "Please, please, give the global economy a chance! Business will pick up once we liberate Guam and get the sea lanes open again. We promise!"

Of course, the government men and women used savvier words, but the subtext was there and the people once again felt chucked overboard in the midst of a financial crisis.

Commander Yamoto read the reports from his superiors while enjoying a steak dinner with Dango and Satin on the sunny veranda of Admiral Cole's palatial home, which was now Yamoto's headquarters. Palm trees wafted overhead.

"Civilization is unraveling faster than we had hoped," Yamoto said. "Central Command is recruiting agitators in the major Pacific nations, especially China and the United States, to stoke the unrest. After Tryga sinks the combined fleet, the industrial nations worldwide will appear weak. Their expensive, high-tech weapons will lose their awe. And the tears of the families who lost loved ones in the upcoming battle will wash away all fear of authority." Yamoto refilled everyone's wine glass. "Nothing makes an organization like ours stronger than revolution. Cheers!"

#

The submarine _Explorer_ departed from Fiji, sailing at full knots. Commander Nelson, Jiro, and Shindo gathered at the map.

"We just cleared the Solomons," Carl traced their northerly course with his finger. "Our trip to Guam is half over, but we're not going to get there in time are we?"

"No," Jiro said. "The navies on the American side of the Pacific are already rendezvoused at Pearl Harbor and the navies on the Asian side of the Pacific are en route for Guam as we speak. They will be engaged with the Red Bamboo's task force by the time we arrive."

"What if we transmit a message to the UN, ask them to hold off until we get to Guam first?" Shindo suggested.

"Not a chance," Carl poured himself a cup of coffee. "The Red Bamboo controls two NCTS sites. They'll pick up our transmission. We don't want to tip off Commander Yamoto that we're coming."

Gary was in one of the Explorer's guest quarters. Even though the quarters were intended for dignitaries, they were still compact.

Dayo came in with two iced teas.

Gary sat up in his bunk and she sat next to him, giving him one of the glasses.

"What do you want to do," Dayo said, "play cards, checkers, chess, watch TV, or listen to music? I vote we listen to more music."

"You're awfully calm. We're two days away from entering a war zone."

"Are you nervous?" Dayo asked, showing concern.

Gary didn't want her to get upset over him. "Naw, not too terribly."

"Don't be," Dayo smiled. "I dealt with the Red Bamboo before. Just follow my lead."

Gary watched her stir her drink with her straw and then take a sip. He still couldn't get over how comfortable she was with him. She acted like they had been friends for months instead of weeks.

Dayo noticed how intently he was watching her. "What is it?"

"Nothing!" At first he discarded his train of thought but changed his mind. He decided he had a right to know what was going on. "Mind if I ask a personal question?"

Dayo shrugged.

"What did the Twin Fairies tell you about me?"

The island girl drew away. "Only you were a good person and how you helped them."

"They told you a lot. I can tell. The moment they introduced us you acted like you've known me forever."

Dayo dropped eye contact and said, "You really do see the bad in everything."

That shut him up. First, because she was right, and second, because the Twin Fairies also confronted him about his negativity. This proved they did have an intimate discussion about him. Gary could only imagine how intimate. The Fairies were telepaths.

Then it dawned on him what a gift he had. If the Fairies did tell Dayo everything there was to know about Gary Culmin, heart and soul, warts and all and she still wanted to be with him, then she must like him—truly like him.

He back paddled his attitude before he spoiled a relationship which was on the cusp of blossoming into something special.

"If you want the truth," Dayo said, "yes, the Twin Fairies showed me a lot about you before you came to Infant Island. I decided the man I want must be like Ryota and his friends, brave and kind hearted. You are such a man."

Gary thought, whoa! "I doubt I'm as good a fighter as they were."

"You don't need to be as good as them. Just be as willing as they were to do what's right."

"Even so, did you wonder why the Fairies showed you those things about me?"

"No."

"No?"

"I trust them. Why are you questioning their motives?"

"I don't like being left out of the loop," Gary said. Dayo frowned. She didn't understand his idiom, so he elaborated. "Meaning, if the Twin Fairies want to make plans involving me I wish they would've kept me informed like they kept you informed."

Dayo grinned. "What do you think the Twin Fairies were doing?"

"I suspect they were playing matchmaker."

"Matchmaker?" Dayo was unfamiliar with the word.

"Meaning, they knew I needed a girlfriend and you wanted to leave Infant Island, so they brought us together."

Dayo didn't answer. She was deep in thought.

"Am I right?" he pressed her for a response.

"Some things should not be questioned or you will rob them of their magic." She squeezed his hand, saying yes with her touch rather than with her words.

#

Dawn's early light shined over five hundred military vessels. Japan, China, South Korea and Australia contributed a hundred ships each to the cause, mostly frigates. They looked like fledglings gathered around their mothers in comparison to the monstrous Nimitz class aircraft carriers of the US 7th fleet.

No matter how one looked at it, five hundred warships arrayed across miles of ocean blue was an arresting sight. Their knife-edge prows pointed like arrowheads toward Guam. By sundown they would be joined by another two hundred ships sailing in from Hawaii. The two halves of the combined fleet were designated "Big Hammer" and "Little Hammer".

Commander Yamoto sailed out with the Red Bamboo taskforce to confront Big Hammer aboard his flagship, _The Rapier_. "We have eight hours to sink the Asian half of the combined fleet before we get caught in a two front war," he radioed to his subordinates. "Good hunting and good luck!"

Admiral Halsey commanded Big Hammer from the aircraft carrier _USS Torrent_. With so many sailors under his command, he felt like Moses leading the children of Israel to the Promised Land with Guam being the Promised Land. He dubbed the Red Bamboo as the Canaanites in his log.

"Any sign of Tryga?" he asked his sonar operator.

"Difficult to say. We're detecting massive amounts of sea life."

Tryga had sunk so many ships, the animal kingdom expected a free meal wherever man sailed. Schools of sharks and other carnivorous fish had been following the combined fleet ever since they left port.

"There's been a lot of chatter," his XO said, "about the sharks trailing us. The men see it as a bad omen, as though the fish expect us to lose."

Halsey exchanged grave looks with his XO.

Outside the bridge view ports, he could see the fighters poised on the deck, ready for him to give them the word. Halsey licked his lips and gazed hard at the eastern horizon where the enemy hid like a viper. Something must be done to fortify the moral of his command. "Patch me into all ships."

His communications officer opened a line on all channels.

"This is Admiral Halsey, your commanding officer. In a few minutes we are about to engage in a conflict which will determine the fate of the free world. We are of many faiths, but one people and as one let us call upon God, whether He goes by the name of Allah or Jesus Christ, and ask Him to lead us to victory, for that is our greatest advantage over the enemy. We are god-fearing whereas they are godless. I believe with all my heart our faith will bring us home safe. Godspeed!"

Commander Yamoto and his bridge officers chuckled when they overheard Halsey's transmission.

"They call upon their gods," Yamoto smirked, "we call upon Tryga." He radioed Faora. "King of Clubs to Queen of Diamonds, are you reading me?"

"I'm reading you," her voice sounded over the bridge intercom.

"Deal the Ace of Spades."

Faora summoned Tryga with the kaiju neural stimulator from the safety of the US Navy's Computer and Telecommunications Station. "Queen of Diamonds to King of Clubs, the card has been dealt."

Halsey's sonar operator reported, "Still no sign of the sea monster."

"The Red Bamboo taskforce will be in striking distance of our surface-to-surface missiles in five minutes," Halsey's XO said.

"Launch all aircraft. We'll soften them up with bombs and deliver the knockout punch with raw firepower."

Suddenly a blip appeared on sonar, a big one, right at the center of the screen. "Admiral! Admiral! Tryga is here!"

The giant stingray burst from the sea and leapt atop the deck of the _USS Torrent_. Tryga had swum along the seabed, using the abundance of sharks to screen her movements.

The aircraft carrier lurched side to side. Its 250 foot wide flight deck barely contained the sea monster as she wriggled around and hosed the planes off the deck of the neighboring carrier, the _USS Winter Storm_. The _Torrent's_ own aircraft were either spilling into the sea or getting crushed.

Halsey and his crew tumbled about the bridge, grasping for hand holds while the intercom blared with requests to open fire.

"Yes! Yes!" the admiral hollered into his headset mike. "Open fire!"

By then Tryga had done her damage and dove back into the sea just as the chain guns and auto-cannons from the surrounding frigates and destroyers opened fire, ripping mortal wounds into _Torrent's_ superstructure.

"The combined fleet halted its advance," Yamoto's XO announced.

"Good. Launch surface-to-surface missiles."

The Red Bamboo launched Harpoon anti-ship missiles which they had confiscation from the US Navy's ordnance annex on Guam. Big Hammer was too busy trying to strike a blow at Tryga to effectively counter the incoming warheads. Two Harpoons speared the _Winter Storm_. The _Torrent_ , already in bad shape, took a Harpoon in the heart of her flight deck. She listed to the side while her sister carrier sunk in flames.

"All hands abandon ship!" Halsey cried out over the intercom.

"Admiral!" His XO pointed to the windows.

Tryga stared at them with her soulless eyes. The last thing Admiral Halsey saw was Tryga's cavernous maw open wide and chomp down.

From the radio chatter, Yamoto deduced Big Hammer lost its CO. The radar screens still showed the Asian half of the combined fleet floating like a carcass.

Yamoto sighed in relief. "Our gamble paid off. If we hadn't stricken their commander, the outer portions of the fleet would flank us on both sides. Now they have no one to give them orders. Prep surface-to-surface missiles. Nibble their periphery. Herd them toward Tryga in the center."

The combined fleet had been thrown together too quickly to form a proper chain of command. Once Tryga killed Admiral Halsey, Big Hammer splintered along national lines. Officers organized their forces on the fly, which took time, and it wasn't easy with Harpoons raining from the sky and a giant stingray slaying their ships like a wolf running rabid through a herd of sheep.

Two new targets appeared on their sonar screens, closing fast. The airwaves crackled with questions: "What's coming? They're too big to be subs." Only the Japanese task force recognized the echo. "I guarantee you this much," their commander radioed to the other ships, "One of those targets is Godzilla."

 **Chapter 8**

It was a bad day for mankind. Tryga was ripping ships apart and the fish feasted on the shipwrecked survivors bobbing on the waves, not that Godzilla had much sympathy. Eat or be eaten. That's Nature's way.

Godzilla signaled Ebirah to grab Tryga so he can blast the giant stingray with his atomic ray.

Ebirah gestured with his claws, acknowledging Godzilla's plan.

Godzilla surfaced amidst the ships. Bullets and cannon shells whizzed passed him like bees. Acrid smoke tainted the salty air. A Harpoon rocket swished through the clouds and dropped on a frigate to Godzilla's right. A ball of fire erupted out of its hull, peppering him with sharp, metal fragments.

This was Armageddon on the high seas.

Godzilla glanced at the burning ship in annoyance for spewing its guts at him and turned toward Tryga. He roared, grabbing the stingray's attention.

Ebirah clamped their enemy's tail.

Godzilla drew in his breath.

Tryga, already high strung from the fighting, reacted like lightning and wrenched free of Ebirah's grasp right when Godzilla exhaled his atomic ray. The beam flashed through the open air where Tryga had been a heartbeat ago and scorched an Anzac class destroyer. Molten metal flooded the magazine, setting off a gut-wrenching explosion. The giant lobster chirped, _She's too slippery_.

Godzilla scowled and searched the battlefield.

Tryga ululated from behind a Chinese frigate.

Godzilla turned the ship with the bow aimed like a spear point and thrust it across the water.

Tryga ducked under the surface. The ship passed overhead and gouged a second frigate. The abrupt impact threw all hands off their feet. The ships folded, exploded, and sank in flames.

Godzilla slapped the water with his tail in frustration.

 _She's outmaneuvering us_ , Ebirah chirped.

Godzilla grunted in agreement. _Tryga is focused on the boats_ , he roared. _Attack her while she's attacking another ship._

They used the ships as cover as they snuck in close and seized Tryga from behind. All three monsters splashed and tossed, doing more damage to the humans than to each other.

Tryga saw this as a losing deal. She couldn't concentrate while that strange signal kept buzzing in her head, driving her to attack the ships. She needed to destroy the source of the signal so she could concentrate on fighting this land dweller and his lobster companion.

She wrenched herself free once again and shot like a meteor under the water.

Godzilla and Ebirah dove under the surface in pursuit.

The battlefield fell silent.

"Commander," Yamoto's XO broke a sweat. "Tryga disengaged from the combined fleet. She's heading toward Guam with two other monsters trailing after her."

Cracks appeared in Yamoto's cocky demeanor. "King of Clubs to Queen of Diamonds, boost the signal!"

"I am!" Faora exclaimed over the intercom.

The Red Bamboo wanted a vicious kaiju under their control, and they got one. The only problem was the creature's viciousness was as much a liability as an asset. Thanks to her violent behavior, Tryga made enemies of Godzilla and Ebirah. Shindo had warned him: "Monsters are a two-edged sword."

Those words haunted Yamoto's thoughts. "Status of the combined fleet?" he asked.

"Half their force is still operational."

"That's two hundred fifty ships against our thirty." Yamoto ground his jaw. "Order a retreat. All ships retreat! Head for our rendezvous point on the Asian mainland."

#

The submarine _Explorer_ crept into Guam's Apra Harbor and halted 500 yards from Polaris Point. Shindo, Gary, and Dayo stuffed their gear into waterproof rucksacks, suited up, and swam the remaining distance to shore. They changed out of their wetsuits in the woods and headed for Camp Covington. They avoided the Red Bamboo sentries by using the tunnels dug by the Japanese army back in World War 2 and made it to the camp without incident.

"The compound holding the prisoners will be over there." Shindo indicated the location on the map and pointed in the direction where the building was situated. "And the armory is over there. You remember the plan?"

Gary and Dayo nodded yes.

"Repeat it for me."

They repeated it for him.

"Excellent. Gary, get out your sidearm. Tell me what you know."

The American youth pointed out the safety, unloaded and reloaded the magazine, and told him how he would cock back the slide to get it ready to fire, just as Shindo had instructed prior to the mission.

Shindo patted him on the side of the arm. "Good man. Dayo, are you sure you want to jump into this fracas with just your dagger?"

"I'm sure."

"If we get into a tight spot we'll use our wits, right?" Gary said and exchanged smiles with Dayo.

Shindo cocked a skeptical brow. "All right, kids, rock-n-roll."

They split in two directions. Shindo headed for the prison compound. Gary and Dayo headed for the armory.

Few sentries patrolled the Marine base. Perhaps the large number of military facilities on Guam had spread the Red Bamboo's forces thin. Or they could be bunked in a nearby building. Who could be sure until an alarm was tripped?

Two Red Bamboo troopers watched the armory's back entrance.

"Say," the first one nodded toward the tree line. "That bush wasn't there before, was it?"

The second shrugged. "Who knows? I don't pay attention to bushes."

They resumed their duties, heard a twig snap. They spun back toward the bush. It seemed closer than it did a moment ago.

"We got an intruder," the first guard said. He pulled back the bolt to his Thompson submachine gun. "And he's in that bush!"

As he said that, a dove fluttered from the bush.

The second soldier relaxed. "You and your bush!" he sneered.

They turned around and found themselves staring down the business end of a Beretta 9mm.

Their preoccupation with the bush allowed Gary to circle in from behind. He motioned to them to be silent.

The second trooper tried to shout out but Dayo clocked him on the back of the head with a sturdy tree branch. He crumbled onto the pavement, out cold.

"By the way," Dayo whispered to the conscious man, "you were right. You did have an intruder in the bush." She admitted her guilt with a smile.

Gary and Dayo tied up the guards, gagged them, and concealed them in the tree line. They used the guard's keys to open the back entrance. Dayo clunked the sentry patrolling the rows and rows of weapons and Gary backed a truck up to the loading dock. They loaded boxes of assault rifles and ammunition.

"These will be useful for us." Dayo tossed Gary a couple smoke grenades.

"So far so good." Gary clipped the grenades to his belt. "Let's roll!"

Gary put on one of the Red Bamboo's caps and shirts so he could pass as one of them at a distance and got behind the wheel of the truck. Dayo hid in the truck bed under an olive drab tarp.

It looked like they really were going to pull this off when a patrol went to the back of the armory and saw the guards were no where in sight. One of them spoke into a walkie-talkie and another pointed at the truck.

In the next instant, every guard tower in sight opened fire on the truck.

"Hang on!" Gary shouted and punched the gas.

Machine gun rounds hailed on them ripping up the pavement and rattled inside the vehicle.

Dayo popped out from under the tarp and threw smoke grenades at the machine gunners.

Shindo heard the ruckus in the distance and took advantage of the distraction to get up to the guard house. The prison compound wasn't high security like a conventional prison. This was merely a temporary holding facility for POWs. He neutralized the guards with blows to the back of the head, checked to see if anyone was looking his way then propped the men back up at their posts to make it look like they were napping on the job.

He slung their Thompsons over his shoulder and slinked to the entrance.

Footsteps rushed to the door from inside. Voices spoke: "See what the shooting is about!"

Shindo rammed the butt of the Thompson into the face of the first man who ran out of the building and then jumped in front of the open doorway and gunned down the troopers following him. In short order he neutralized the remaining guards, opened the prison cells, and met up with the Marines.

He held out his credentials and shouted, "Shindo Yamaguchi, Japanese Secret Service!"

The American soldiers whooped for joy as he distributed the extra Thompson submachine guns. They exited the building.

Gary squealed around the bend and bashed through the prison gate with hell hot on his heels. Bullet holes riddled the poor truck. Its windshield was shattered. Steam leaked from under the hood, yet the tough vehicle kept chugging.

Two Humvees crewed by Red Bamboo soldiers were right behind him. They got an unhealthy surprise when Shindo and several Marines ambushed them on the compound's grounds.

Gary got out of the truck a little worse for wear.

"Are you hurt?" Shindo checked on the cuts on the boy's face.

"Just got some glass sprayed at me when a bullet hit the window shield."

The Marine's CO shook Gary's hand. "Well done, son. I'll see to it you get a medal of commendation."

The congratulations had to be cut short. Alarms sounded throughout the base.

The Marines lined up at the back of the truck. Dayo passed out the assault rifles. Many of the rifles had been damaged in transit. Enough of them were in good working order for the Marines to get to work. More weapons could be requisitioned from the enemy.

"I'm going to take my team to the NCTS at Barrigada," Shindo told the Marine CO. "That's where the real trouble's at."

"Take a Humvee. It's on the house."

"I'll bring it back in one piece."

"Don't even get my hopes up," the Marine officer grinned. "If you're as good as your British counterpart, you're probably just as rough on equipment."

Shindo resented that. "I'll make an exception for you!"

Dango scaled to the roof of a nearby building with his fellow pirates to get a good overview of the fighting. He spotted Shindo and his companions driving off in the Humvee toward Barrigada.

"We'll let the Red Bamboo tango with the Americans," Dango told his men as the firefight heated up in earnest. "We can't afford to lose the telecommunications base. It's our only means in controlling Tryga."

#

"I don't understand," Faora said. "Why is Tryga heading for us?"

The readouts on the kaiju neural stimulator showed Tryga was only a couple of miles away.

"We underestimated these giant monsters," Satin said. "They're no ordinary animals. They'll take orders so long as what we want coincides with what they want. Tryga doesn't want to destroy ships anymore, so she's coming back to snap her leash."

"How charming," Celeste sneered. "Your boyfriend Yamoto is high-tailing it back to the Asian mainland and the only one coming back for us is his spastic beastie. You know how to pick 'em, Lizzie."

Satin shot her a dirty look. "Time to go."

The three mercenary women grabbed their gear and abandoned Tryga's control box. Just as they were about to leave the control room Shindo, Gary, and Dayo burst in with guns and dagger drawn.

"Just our luck," Celeste griped.

"Dayo," Shindo said, "get their guns."

Satin and Faora surrendered their weapons. Celeste thrust her gun at Dayo, punching her in the midriff with it, making her cough.

"Hey!" Gary shouted at the ornery merc. "Watch it!"

She narrowed her gaze, daring him to do something about it.

Then he recognized Satin. "I remember you. You were the one who shot me back at the cottage!" He never thought he could shoot anyone, but with Satin, his rage boiled over. He aimed the Beretta at her face.

Satin didn't flinch. She spoke evenly as though the gun wasn't even there. "I never hurt civilians as a rule. What happened to you was an accident and I'm sorry. But if you're looking for payback, I will take you down."

The woman was taller than him and made of steel. At least she seemed like it in the way she glared at him. The Beretta in his hand didn't make him feel safe anymore. Gun or no gun, she would make him kiss the floor before he could pull the trigger. "Enough." Shindo lowered Gary's arm. "I'm sorry, Satin. I'm going to have to take you into custody." Their eyes met and lingered, just as they did at the polo tournament, except the playful flirting was over. Only regret remained. He so badly wanted to win her over, but duty controlled his fate, and consequently hers too.

Celeste snorted. "Isn't turning in your own girlfriend pretty low, even for you?"

"She's your girlfriend?" Gary said incredulously.

"Technically, he wishes she were his girlfriend," Celeste clarified, "but that's never going to happen, is it?" she taunted Shindo.

Shindo pursed his lips into a hard line. Gary gaped at him as if he lost a hero. The Japanese secret agent was inches away from throwing away his gun and letting Satin go. It cut him right through the heart to be the one to throw her at the feet of the world court. But the safety of the free world must come first, his feelings second.

"Time is wasting," he said, his voice heavy, "come on."

"Sure," Celeste sneered. She looked past Shindo's shoulder. "Oh hi, Dango!"

"I'm not falling for that," Shindo said, then he took a blow to the back of the skull. He dropped to his hands and knees. Pain kept him subdued on the floor.

Turned out Celeste wasn't kidding. Dango's men rushed the room, disarming Gary and Dayo.

"What's the news on Tryga?" Dango asked.

"She's rejecting our signals," Faora said, "and coming this way."

"Then we're leaving. Kill these three," Dango ordered, nodding toward Shindo, Gary and Dayo.

"No!" Satin countered. "We might need hostages."

"They're your baggage," Dango handed the mercenary women their weapons.

Satin and her gang cuffed Shindo's hands behind his back. Celeste pocketed the key. Of their three prisoners, they considered him dangerous.

The mercs and pirates vacated the control center, dragging their sullen human bargaining chips at gunpoint out into the parking lot.

At the coast, the rolling tropical waves became tempest-tossed as Tryga rose up out of the ocean.

The humans dropped flat onto the hot pavement, hoping the demon stingray didn't see them.

Tryga crawled up the slope, unfurled the tentacles from her underbelly, and ripped the massive transmitting dish down from its mount. She ululated in relief now that her head was no longer bombarded by the kaiju neural stimulator and crawled back toward the sea. The hilltops still echoed from her fearsome cry.

Dango motioned everyone to get up. "Now's our chance."

Their chance went up in smoke as Godzilla surfaced and blasted Tryga with his atomic ray.

Tryga screeched and backed away from the shore. Her whip-like tail slashed through the compound, smacking the sides of buildings. Glass splashed from the windows and sprayed the humans like razor-edged diamonds.

Godzilla and Ebirah cornered Tryga on land. Without water to draw from, Tryga couldn't use her spit attack. She resorted to savage ululations and lashing her tail barb which terrified the humans but didn't fool Godzilla and Ebirah. They knew they had the upper hand.

"We're going to have to make a run for it," Satin told Dango.

Dango agreed. But dragging their hostages along slowed them down. With his hands bound behind his back, Shindo couldn't run.

Godzilla spotted the humans. He recognized Gary, the one who had fed him, and Dayo, the girl he had rescued on Letchi Island. He could tell by the way the mercenaries and pirates were behaving that they were a threat. He roared at them to let Gary and Dayo go.

"Release Gary," Shindo ordered. "He's Godzilla's friend."

"We're dropping the deadweight, Satin." Dango drew his gun.

Satin pushed his gun down. "Not in cold blood!"

"Hot, cold, what's the difference?" Dango shoved her back and shot Gary. The impact knocked the boy off his feet.

Dayo screamed.

Godzilla screamed louder. He stormed toward the parking lot with his fins flashing.

Dango and his pirates scattered like roaches caught in the light.

Godzilla set fire to their hiding places, reaping a harvest of explosions across the base.

Ebirah snapped his pincers at Tryga, forcing her further up the slope. Both of them would suffocate if they did not get back to the water soon, but the kaiju lobster knew he could get back to the sea in time. He had legs. Tryga could only crawl. Tryga saw no other choice. It was either fight or die. The two sea monsters grappled with tentacles and claws, plowing buildings into rubble as they fought.

"Come on!" Faora cried. "We gotta get out of here!"

"No!" Satin countered sharply. She checked Gary's pulse. "He's alive. I can save him." She dug out her first aid kit from her gear bag.

"What for?" Faora was so panicked she was close to tears. Godzilla was setting one end of the base on fire while Ebirah and Tryga were pulverizing the other end and they were caught in the middle.

"I'm making up for bad karma." Satin opened Gary's shirt. An ugly, crimson hole pierced his chest. Faora drew in her breath.

Celeste pressed the barrel of her Heckler & Koch MP5 to the back of Satin's head. "We're leaving." She spoke as though Satin were the lackey.

Shindo weighed what he should do. Words were his only weapon. The right ones could diffuse the situation. The wrong ones…

Satin ground her jaw. She never backed down from a challenge to her authority.

Dayo bit her lip. The blood continued to flow. The longer this standoff lasted the less likely Gary would survive. Then she spied the handle of Faora's bowie knife sticking up on her flak vest.

Shindo noticed the island girl inching toward Faora. He kept his focus off her lest he drew attention. Distractions could cost Gary his life.

Satin resumed administering first aid. "Run if you're scared."

"I'm not scared." Celeste remained resolute, even as another explosion rocked the base.

"Stop it, Celeste!" Faora cried. "You're breaking up the team!"

"'We don't kill civilians,'" Celeste sneered at Satin, ignoring Faora. "'We don't shoot in cold blood.' Since when?"

"Those were always the rules," Satin stated firmly.

"Not always! Lately—when you started making lovey-dovey eyes with this son of a bitch!" Celeste pointed at Shindo. "You got your choice, Lizzie. Come with us." She didn't waste her breath saying the "or else." Satin knew the score.

Satin answered by staunching the bleeding.

Hate flared in Celeste's eyes. She squeezed the trigger. Her gun spat bullets at the same instant Faora yelped in surprise. But the bullets missed their mark. They ripped up the asphalt, zinged past Shindo's head, and struck a "No Admittance" sign across the parking lot.

Not one round hit Satin.

Faora recoiled in horror. Her scabbard was empty. Dayo had reached her in time and flung the knife. It sank into Celeste's jugular, right up to the hilt.

Celeste gnashed her teeth in pain. Like an old bull, she wasn't going to lie down for anyone, not even death. She leveled her machine pistol one-handed at Satin while weaving about, clutching her spurting wound.

Faora elbowed Dayo out of the way and cut her former friend down with a full burst from her MP5, first at the knees then at the head. She threw her gun away and wept into her hands. "I'm sorry, Satin! It was either you or her!"

 **Chapter 9**

Dango told his men to run further inland. Godzilla went after them which bought him time to double back to the coast. He slowed down at the rise overlooking the shore. This wasn't as good an idea as he thought.

Ebirah and Tryga continued to slug it out. The giant stingray splashed into the water, took a big gulp, and spewed her hyper-velocity stream. Ebirah tore one of the giant relay dishes from their mount to use as a shield. The stream burned through the dish. It folded in the giant lobster's grasp, but at least it blunted the spit attack's sting.

Ebirah charged down the slope and shattered the two halves of the dish over Tryga's head like a couple of dinner plates.

Tryga wrapped her tentacles around Ebirah's eye stalks and antennas. The python grip of the tentacles snapped Ebirah's delicate faculties.

Ebirah squealed pitifully.

Blinded, he flailed his claws.

Tryga ululated mockingly, evading the lobster's swings with ease. She seared Ebirah's face with her spit stream. Ebirah squealed again. His cry sounded dry and raspy. He needed to get back in the water.

The stingray now had the edge. All she had to do was duck into the water, take a breath, and come back up refreshed.

Ebirah could neither see the ocean nor smell its salt in the air. He did know the slope of the shore lead into the sea, but no matter which way he went, forward, to the left or right, Tryga kept him at bay with her scalding spit attack. His drying gills stuck together. Finally, his strength failed him. He collapsed upon the shore, suffocating at the edge of the life-giving water. Tryga rolled Ebirah onto his side to slice open his soft belly with her tail barb, slicing blood vessels, and rolled Ebirah back onto his stomach. His once fearsome chirp sputtered into a whimper.

"It's about time one of you croaked," Dango muttered. Godzilla had finished off his men and was on his way to the shore. The pirate bolted for the pier. Now that the sea monsters weren't thrashing around he didn't have to worry about getting squished.

Godzilla bellowed in rage.

Dango looked over his shoulder and saw his kaiju pursuer glaring down at him from the edge of the rise.

Then Tryga spewed Godzilla before he could fire his atomic ray. Fresh welts swelled all over Godzilla's neck and chest. He had no choice. He must face Tryga.

Dango laughed in hysterics. "Serves you right! This is Dango, King of the Java Sea! No one comes after me without paying a price!" While the monsters grappled, the Indonesian pirate boarded a boat and peeled off from the shore. "I am the only one who does not pay the price," he yelled at Godzilla. "Not even God can make me pay, so what makes you think you can!"

Entangled with Tryga, Godzilla locked one eye on the little boat as it sped further out of reach. He summoned all his might and bashed the ray fish flat upon the sand with his elbow, grabbed Tryga's tail and spun the giant ray around, and released his grip.

Dango's sneering turned into gaping incredulity as the Tryga hurled toward him like a giant discus. For a moment Tryga eclipsed the sun before the ray fish smashed into the boat. The splash rivaled a high rise in height.

Godzilla roared. No human could second best the King of the Monsters. No, not one.

#

Satin stroked Celeste's hair. She seemed to be reflecting on better times. She then kissed the still form on the forehead.

Shindo felt responsible. If he hadn't made a play for Satin, he wouldn't have become an issue between them. Satin and Celeste were more than partners in crime. They were once dear friends.

"Faora," Satin got back on her feet, "the Americans will be here soon. Head out. I'll catch you up."

Her last cohort stood nonplussed, like a girl who didn't want to be separated from her older sister. "What do you mean? What's left for you to do? You saved the kid."

Dayo pillowed Gary's head in her lap, shielding him from the tropical sun with her shadow. He looked miserable.

Satin gave Faora a hard stare.

Faora expressed a dawning realization what this really meant. She embraced Satin, crying, "I'm going to miss you!"

Satin held her tight and patted her on the back to be strong.

They separated. Faora ran from the base, looking over her shoulder once before disappearing amidst the flaming ruins.

Satin retrieved the key from Celeste's pocket and removed the cuffs.

Shindo rubbed his wrists. He waited for her to give him a sign of what she needed—someone to blame, a shoulder to cry on.

She pulled herself together. An old skin seemed to shrug off her. Of course, Shindo thought. Her friends were her last link to the underworld. Celeste's betrayal broke that link, now she was free.

Satin held out both her Heckler & Koch MP5 and his weapon. "I want you to take the credit."

"What…?"

"I'm done with being a mercenary."

"I understand, but not like this," Shindo shook his head. He had reached the end of an era. A new era had dawned. He would no longer be competing with madmen and would-be world dictators for her affection. No more moral quandary in being in love with a criminal. Now that they could be together, the last thing he wanted was for her to go to prison. "Run! Catch up with Faora."

"I must pay my debt to society. It will only get deeper if I run."

"Your debt is already deep."

"I must also clear your name. Shindo, don't kid yourself. You've had plenty of opportunities to turn me in and you didn't. The intelligence community isn't stupid. All it takes is one jealous rival, whether personal or political, to expose you to your chief. You must be the one to arrest me if we are to have a future." She pressed the guns against his chest.

Shindo slung the strap to the Tommy gun over his shoulder and reverently handled her submachine gun. Not even Excalibur's Sword was as legendary. "Run. People's memories are short and the wanted list is crowded. Behave yourself and you will be forgotten like yesterdays' headlines. Surrender and we'll never see each other again."

"We'll see each sooner than you think." Satin gave him a beguiling smile. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Need you ask?"

Satin wrapped her arms around his shoulders and whispered into his ear.

A convoy of Humvees and trucks rumbled into the devastated base. Carl and Jiro hopped out of the lead vehicle while scores of US Marines poured out behind them and fanned out through the base.

Carl checked on Shindo. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Get Gary to a hospital."

"I'm on it," Jiro volunteered. He called for the corpsman.

Carl updated Shindo on the naval battle. "We've retaken Guam and Big Hammer crushed the Red Bamboo's fleet except for one ship, a heavy cruiser. It fled while the rest of the Red Bamboo screened for its escape."

"That would be Yamoto's ship, _The Rapier_ " Shindo concluded.

"Without a doubt. We're tracking _The_ _Rapier_ via satellite but once the crew disperses on land it's going to be like hunting needles in a haystack. Yamoto has slipped through our fingers." Carl then glowered at the repentant mercenary. "Satin, I presume?" He took a firm grip of her arm. "Consider yourself under arrest."

Shindo cleared his throat. "I got this one covered."

Satin smirked at Carl and pulled away.

The UN sub commander suspected something was up between these two. "I don't like what I see here, but I'm not going to ask."

"Good," Shindo led Satin by the arm toward the trucks. "Don't."

Carl stopped them. "Uh, that's a favor you owe me."

Shindo chuckled. "Fair enough!"

When they got to the truck's tailgate, Satin turned to him.

"Elisabeth," she said.

"Eh?" Shindo recalled Celeste calling her "Lizzie." Lizzie—Elisabeth.

"My real name is Elisabeth Van Valkenburg. I want you to be the first to know before the rest of the world."

The barriers came down between them. Even the way she revealed her name sounded like "I love you." But then, Shindo heard this name announced at the tournament in Amsterdam. "Yes, I'm the first, right after the entire polo league," he teased.

She winked. "The best kept secret is kept out in the open."

#

After his victory roar, Godzilla headed into the sea to finish business.

Splinters of Dango's boat bobbed on the undulating waves, marking where Tryga had splashed into the water.

Godzilla dove deep into the Pacific's cool, salty embrace. A disk-shaped silhouette grabbed his attention to the left. It was Tryga! He turned, but his quarry swam so swiftly he couldn't keep it in view.

Tryga buzzed behind him, slashing him with her tail barb. Godzilla arched his back, wincing. Was that barb poisoned? Time would tell. He would have to rely on his diehard constitution to resist the effects.

The demon ray soared far into the distance, banked, and soared back with the speed and agility of a jet fighter.

The speed Godzilla could never match. But agility…jet fighters weren't agile, not like Rodan. Godzilla got an idea.

Before he could formulate it, Tryga zoomed passed him and entwined his tail with hers, whipping him through the murky depths. The friction inflamed Godzilla's tender welts, chafing his skin like sand paper. His blood mixed with the trail of bubbles left in Tryga's high speed wake.

Tryga peeled toward a forest of ancient corals. Gigantic in size, these corals calcified eons ago. Their edges were rock hard and sharp as claws. Tryga, with her flattened form, zipped through them, avoiding contact by tilting a little to the left or right, while Godzilla, with his husky body, smashed through them. The fossilized corals gouged his flesh.

Godzilla clenched his teeth, biting down on the urge to howl.

Tryga cleared the forest and released Godzilla in open water.

The momentum kept him flailing helplessly. By the time he slowed enough to regain control Tryga circled around and bashed into his gut head first. His breath burst from his mouth. They slammed into the corals along the sea floor mountain range with Godzilla acting as the cushion.

Tryga veered away to set up for a second charge.

This was Godzilla's opportunity to put his plan into action. He wedged one of the broken coral branches into the mountainside like a stake. He rolled about in front of it, clutching his stomach. His stomach hurt plenty which made it easy to put on a convincing show that he was in pain.

Tryga turned around and soared right at him.

Godzilla let her come closer, closer, closer…then swam away from the coral.

Tryga tried to changed course but she came too fast. Her momentum hurtled her forward and the coral speared her in the chest. Blood spurted from her gills and mouth.

Tryga slid down the slope to the edge of an ocean trench. Her tentacles gripped the precipice while her hands yanked on the coral to no avail. Her strength ebbed as her life force leaked from her wound. The grip on the coral slackened. At long last, mighty Tryga became still. The evil glint in her black eyes turned glassy. The giant stingray drifted over the edge and sank into the darkness.

Godzilla slumped against the mountain slope. This time he felt no jubilant sense of victory—too tired for that. But if he understood the concept of beer and could get his hands on some, he'd crack open a can. No one animal could have defeated Tryga alone, yet he did it, alone.

Up on the shore, Ebirah mustered his strength, crawled a short distance, and sank into the sand. He wheezed pitifully. The world was cruel to lobsters. It deserved to lose him, the grandest of all lobsters. He only wished he didn't have to die to make his point.

Water splashed against him as footsteps thumped up the shore.

He wriggled his broken eye stalks and antennas, trying to see who was coming. He heard Godzilla's roar.

 _Tryga is dead._

The tone of finality made it clear their alliance was over.

This was what both monsters feared. One of them would be mortally wounded fighting Tryga and end up at the other's mercy. Of course, Ebirah noted sardonically, he ended up being the one. In all honesty, Ebirah could not be sure what he would do if the roles had been reversed. The temptation to kill Godzilla to get his revenge and gain dominance of the whole ocean would be great. He could expect no better of Godzilla.

He gasped, _am I going to die?_

Godzilla growled, _yes._ He then grunted, _but not today._

The mutated dinosaur hauled the giant lobster into the sea.

They journeyed to the Marianas Trench where they paused on the precipice to Gaia's Womb. Down below awaited the healing rays of the Fountain of Life. But more than that, Godzilla's act of mercy would be taking them into new territory. Would it be suited for a crustacean and archosaur?

They took the plunge.

#

Dayo became chipper as sunshine when the nurse assured her Gary would recover—in time. She told him how Godzilla went on a rampage after Dango shot him. "He chased the pirates all over the base. They didn't have a chance!"

"I'm surprised Godzilla cared." Gary's voice sounded raspy.

Dayo poured him a glass of water.

"I fed him at the cottage," Gary continued, "but I assumed he took the food for granted, like a big kid. He wouldn't have a clue of how much it cost me. When he became full sized again, I figured he would forget because he didn't need me anymore."

"Kindness goes a long way. I'd like to think he was trying to protect me, too. He did once, from the Red Bamboo," she reflected wistfully on Godzilla's gallantry. "But, I'm probably flattering myself."

They became quiet for a moment. Gary sensed Dayo wanted to talk about something else. He waited rather than trying to prompt her to speak.

"I was wondering," she said, speaking tentatively, "what are your plans after you are released from the hospital?"

"Go back to school, I guess."

"May I come with you, to your country?"

"To the United States? You've seen how dangerous the outside world is. On Infant Island you have Mothra as your protector."

"I am brave enough to live outside her protection," Dayo lifted her head proudly.

Gary stifled his laughter. She meant it. He would love to take her home with him, but he was not convinced that was the best thing for her. "Think about it first. Then we'll talk about it later."

"There is too little to do and too little to see on the island. I am ready for the outside world. All I need is for someone to help me make the transition." Dayo looked into his eyes, hoping he would be the one to help her.

She was serious. She was ready. He would only disappoint her if he refused to take her home with him. So he had no reason to feel as though he were trying to persuade her to do something that was not in her best interest. In truth, he wanted to take her back to the States. Because he had fallen in love with her. And like the Twin Fairies said, all women a man falls in love with are perfect, and right now Dayo was the most perfect woman in the world. He would be a fool to not let this dream come true.

"All right," Gary smiled. "You're coming with me to the States. You're going to become an American."

"And best of all we'll be together." Dayo wrapped her arms around him and kissed him.

 **Epilogue**

The ringleaders of the Red Bamboo scrambled about their headquarters, burning documents. The Hague sentenced Elisabeth Van Valkenburg, aka Satin, one year in prison with the option of an early release pending good behavior. One year! To get such a light sentence meant only one thing: she talked. Satin knew enough dirt to put the world's most notorious criminals behind bars. The leaders of the Red Bamboo did not know if she had told the authorities where their hideout was located. But why take the chance? They had to run.

"Why didn't you get yourself a fashion model like the rest of us?" Yamoto's colleagues groused. "You know, a broad who's too stupid to even consider ratting us out."

Yamoto ignored them and headed up to his office to grab a few things. Before he turned on the light, he sensed he was not alone. He reached for his gun instead of the light switch and spun around.

A familiar figure sat silhouetted by the window. The man had his feet propped up on Yamoto's desk and a pistol aimed for his chest. The pale light reflected off the silencer.

Yamoto grinned. "Shindo, you should've fired the moment I opened the door. Now you don't have a chance."

Both men had their firing hands stretched toward each other.

"You're quick," Shindo acknowledged, "but at this range, even you can't be one hundred percent certain."

Yamoto grew impatient. "What do you want? Are you here to gloat about Satin?"

"As tempting as that sounds, no," Shindo said, "I'm not here to gloat about her." Elisabeth did exchange information for a leaner sentence. The location of the Red Bamboo's hideout was one of reams of data she gave to the authorities. She cleansed herself from her past through the fires of the system rather than running from them as Shindo had urged her to do. Now she could enjoy her retirement from her mercenary work out in the sun rather than hiding in darkness. Shindo and Elisabeth had already picked a place for dinner on the night of her release.

"She will betray you," Yamoto taunted.

"I am sorry you feel that way about her." Shindo cocked back the hammer of his 9mm. "In a minute, a commando team will be busting down the doors. My task is to make certain you're counted among the dead."

"Guns are anticlimactic. If you want to fight, let's fight."

The very thing Shindo did not want to face, a one on one brawl with Commander Yamoto. Yet, the challenge awakened a primeval urge. They were two alpha males penned in one room. Fighting was inevitable. He narrowed his gaze at the Red Bamboo commander to be sure the man wasn't angling to escape.

Yamoto stood resolute. There was no intention to run in this man.

Both men eased the hammers to their weapons back in place and set them aside.

Shindo got up, took his jacket off.

Yamoto removed his officer's cap.

They faced each other in the middle of the room.

"The world's greatest secret agent versus the world's strongest soldier," Commander Yamoto mused. "Pity we don't have an audience."

Down below, window glass shattered, doors were being battered down. Men shouted. Gunfire erupted. Neither rival allowed himself to be distracted.

"I see it as speed versus brawn,' Shindo said.

"Do the honors, Speedy," Yamoto smirked. "Throw the first punch."

"You go ahead." Shindo flexed his hands, got ready.

Yamoto cocked his brow. "We'll never get started if we keep acting like gentlemen."

"We'll start on the count of three—three!"

Fists flew threw the air.

And the fight began.

 **The End**


End file.
